[obol] Re: Wherefore art thou, oh albatross?

  • From: Tim Rodenkirk <garbledmodwit@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: "llsdirons@xxxxxxx" <llsdirons@xxxxxxx>, paul sullivan <paultsullivan@xxxxxxxxxxxx>, OBOL Oregon Birders Online <obol@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2014 06:10:51 -0800 (PST)

A see a HUGE opportunity here to make some big cash- be the first one to 
develop an app that can tell you what the CPL is from your current offshore GPS 
coordinates.  This is something that could be used to navigate around whatever 
your favorite county chunk of offshore waters may be in whatever state.  App 
writers, get to work, there is serious money to be made here!

Tim Rodenkirk
Completely app-less in Coos Bay



On Wednesday, February 5, 2014 1:40 AM, David Irons <llsdirons@xxxxxxx> wrote:
 


Paul Sullivan queried:

Question: Is there anyone who espouses your position other than you? Anyone
at the ABA who wants to draw the lines as you do?

I'll preface my comments by saying that even though I am a member of the Oregon 
Bird Records Committee (OBRC), the thoughts and opinions expressed below are 
mine alone and they are not meant to reflect how others on the committee might 
feel about this issue. 

This is not Mike Patterson's "position." It is an interpretation/representation 
of how Oregon's at-sea boundaries would look if the closest point of land (CPL) 
methodology is adopted at the upcoming annual meeting of the Oregon Bird 
Records Committee (OBRC). The American Birding Association (ABA) has already 
adopted this methodology, thus if you intend to submit your listing totals to 
ABA or OBA, which follows the ABA Listing Rules, then these boundaries are 
already in effect for you. 

I want to make it perfectly clear that the CPL method is not a creation of the 
OBRC. Further, consideration of this proposal is not being driven by a 
particular committee member or group of committee members who are convinced 
that using CPL is a simpler method. In fact, multiple members have expressed 
legitimate concerns over how one can know exactly when they've crossed these 
invisible at-sea boundaries using the CPL method instead the latitudinal 
straight line running due west from the onshore border. Presently, there are no 
easy answers to that question. However, if you capture a GPS reading when you 
see a bird of interest at sea, there are a number of fairly easy ways to assign 
that observation to a county/state once you are back on land with full Internet 
access. I'm not going to rattle through those in this email, but if this change 
comes to pass there will surely be further discussion in this forum and some 
accompanying education. 

If you look at the Oregon coastline, it is mostly devoid of promontories that 
extend much farther west than the westernmost points in neighboring counties. 
The glaring exception is Cape Blanco, which is by far the westernmost point in 
Oregon. This is why there is such an expansive wedge for Curry Co. on Mike's 
map and even a chunk of ocean south of the 42nd parallel (the Oregon/California 
border) that would be considered Oregon and Curry County waters if the CPL 
method is adopted. 

If you are scratching your head over why the CPL concept has gained traction 
and adoption in the birding world over the last couple decades, don't look at 
the Oregon coast, where the straight line method seems perfectly logical. 
Instead, pull out a U.S. atlas and check out the Middle Atlantic Coast. Then 
try to figure out how you might draw up the at sea boundaries for New Jersey, 
Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. Once you get that worked out, you might try 
tackling the at-sea boundaries for Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New 
York, Rhode Island and Connecticut. As you can see, trying to interpret how the 
straight line method works for these states would be a nightmare, with 
neighboring states all using the most advantageous extensions of their 
boundaries to claim as much ocean territory as possible. It is for this reason 
that U.S. Maritime Law uses the CPL method whenever there is a disputed claim 
over at-sea jurisdiction. It may seem like a
 convoluted way of doing things, but from any point out on the ocean, there is 
only one closest point of land. It is unambiguous. I'm not sure who gets credit 
for first suggesting that birders adopt this methodology, but it certainly 
simplifies things along the Atlantic Coast. 

In the grand scheme of things, the rancor over which state or county gets to 
claim a particular bird  for the purposes of our little bird listing game is 
not likely to get too crazy. It will not rival the competition for offshore oil 
and gas rights, or bickering over which state gets to collect all the licensing 
fees from the commercial fisherman using those waters.  Regardless, there is 
still a need for an easy way to keep track of the playing field. Since the ABA 
is the de facto national governing body when it comes to who gets to count what 
and where, they have to adopt rules that are clear, unambiguous, and work in 
every corner of the U.S., not just Oregon, where the shape of our coastline 
lends itself to using the straight line extended method. 

In addition to the ABA adopting the CPL methodology, it is also used by eBird 
and is gradually being adopted by more and more of the individual state records 
committees. Both the California and Washington BRCs  (CBRC and WBRC 
respectively) have recently made bylaw changes that make the use of the CPL 
method official. If Oregon were to continue to use the straight line method 
going forward, the wedge off the mouth of the Columbia River that lies south of 
the imaginary line extending west from the state line would, in effect, be 
claimed by both Oregon and Washington. Any bird seen in that wedge could 
legitimately be counted for both states, if that makes any sense (it doesn't). 

The resulting impact at the southern border would be more bizarre. In adopting 
this change, the CBRC acknowledges that there is a significant wedge of far 
offshore waters (south of the 42nd parallel) that are closer to Cape Blanco 
than they are to any point of land in California, thus these are now treated 
(by the CBRC anyway) as Oregon waters. If the OBRC continues to use the 
straight line extended method, 42 degrees N continuing to function as the state 
line at sea, this wedge would be in effect a no man's land. If one were to see 
a Shy Albatross or a White-chinned Petrel while cruising through this wedge, it 
could not be legitimately counted for either state. 

On the surface, this change may seem weird or even a bit non-sensical, as it 
did to me the first time I learned of the CPL method a few years back. There 
will be some initial confusion and maybe even frustration as we all try to 
grasp and adapt to a new set of boundaries. This fact is not lost on me, or 
other members of the OBRC who might support CPL adoption. My personal feeling 
is that we (the OBRC) should work in concert with our neighbors and endeavor to 
make our rules and standards, along with our methods for determining boundaries 
as consistent as possible with those being used all over the United States. I 
also believe that we should follow the ABA Listing Rules, since many Oregon 
birders report their totals to ABA and OBA annually. 

It is not my mission or the OBRC's mission to tell anyone what they can or 
can't count for their own list. It's also not part of our mission to establish 
the at-sea county boundaries or tell any individual how they have to determine 
them. We review records of species that are rare in Oregon. Our primary 
geopolitical concerns center on making sure that a Review List bird reported to 
the OBRC was actually seen within Oregon and, if asked, being able to offer a 
clear definition of the Oregon boundaries as we recognize them. 

If, for the purposes of your own listing, you want to continue to use the 
straight line method (presuming that the CPL method is adopted by the OBRC), it 
is your choice to do so. There are no list police who are going audit your list 
or show up on your doorstep to challenge the species total that you claim for a 
particular state or county. Birding works on an honor system. The rules are out 
there. How you choose to interpret them and how closely you choose to follow 
them is entirely up to you. 

I hope this answers some of the questions that Mike's recent blogs may have 
raised. This post is intended to explain why this proposal is being considered 
by the OBRC. Mike Patterson, who is an OBRC alternate, has put forth some great 
information and a nice map showing how things would change with adoption of the 
CPL method. 

Dave Irons
Portland, OR 

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