AOU Committee on Bird Collections
Past News Highlights
15 October 2006: The AOU Collections Committee organized a roundtable discussion at the 2006 North American Ornithological Conference in Veracruz, Mexico, with a focus on permitting policies with international impact for scientific collecting of avian research specimens - in particular, the implications of a possible upcoming federal review of the scientific collecting policy for Canada. The title of this roundtable was Challenges and progress in scientific collecting policies: Canada as an impending case study for a national policy review. Discussion points included the current status of scientific collecting in Canada, Canadian and international aspirations for the outcome of a Canadian collecting policy review, lessons learned from previous national policy reviews in participating NAOC countries, and ideas for improving international coordination in shaping scientific collecting policy in North America. A total of 33 people attended the discussion.
15 September 2005: The AOU Collections Committee sponsored a symposium on collections at the annual meeting of the society in Seattle, Washington, August 2001. Papers developed from this symposium are published as a series of commentaries in the July 2005 issue of The Auk. Topics are as follows:
- Bird Collections: Development and Use of a Scientific Resource (K. Winker)
- Old Bones in New Boxes: Osteology Collections in the New Millennium (D. Causey & J. Trimble)
- Future of Avian Genetic Resources Collections: Archives of Evolutionary and Environmental History (S. V. Edwards, S. Birks, R. T. Brumfield, & R. Hanner)
- New Directions for Bioacoustics Collections (S. L. L. Gaunt, D. A. Nelson, M. S. Dantzker, G. F. Budney, and J. W. Bradbury)
- Free and Open Access to Bird Specimen Data: Why? (A. T. Peterson, C. Cicero, and J. Wieczorek)
- Use of Bird Collections in Contaminant and Stable-isotope Studies (D. A. Rocque & K. Winker)
- History, Present Status, and Future Prospects of Avian Eggshell Collections in North America (L. F. Kiff)
12 April 2005: New statutes governing the Universidad Nacional de Colombia would eliminate faculty positions at the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, thus jeopardizing the continuity and stability necessary for curation and study of the ICN collections. An open letter to colleagues requests that letters be sent to University administrators in support of the ICN and permanent research staffing.
11 March 2005: Letters in Science (pdf) highlight the impacts of proposed budget cuts to the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, one of the most important research museums in the world. These cuts would result in the loss of 17 positions, including the Research Curator for birds.