I wonder how many readers of this list understood Dave Horn's brief post
yesterday referring to the Cleveland harlequin duck:
"Where's Milt Trautman when we need him?":
Trautman, a professor at OSU, curator at the biological museum, and
expert on the birds and fishes of Ohio, was quite insistent about the
importance of physical specimens to verify the occurrence of species. A
hunter and fisher, he was known to deploy his net often to procure
verifiable specimens of fishes and his shotgun for birds. However you
may feel about this, his gun provided many records that added to the
Ohio bird list; in fact, it was largely because of Trautman that so many
birds many we may regard as Lake Erie specialties were collected instead
as first Ohio records down in central Ohio: Eurasian Wigeon, Cinnamon
Teal, King and Common Eiders, Black Scoter, Surf Scoter, Magnificent
Frigatebird, Long-tailed Jaeger, Sabine’s Gull, Black-legged Kittiwake,
Franklin’s Gull, etc. How many would accept these as sight records
without specimens to prove them? Birders were known to object to his
practice of shooting rare birds, some because he shot them before
observers could see them, and others because he so obviously removed
them forever from the outdoors, even while securing them a permanent
place in the ornithological record, as well as museum drawers.
Most of us would agree that the establishment of solid scientific first
records trumps the importance of the chance that birders might add
certain species to their lists. Still many of us also understand why
members of the Columbus Audubon Society organized a watch to keep an eye
on the first state record of a red-cockaded woodpecker to prevent
Trautman from shooting it during its stay in a state park.
I have a copy of a letter Milt wrote to Kark Maslowski in 1969, after
the latter invited Trautman to come down to see a black-headed grosbeak
in SW Ohio. Here is Trautman's tart reply:
"Dear Karl: Thank you so much for notifying me of the Black-headed
Grosbeak in Milford, Ohio. The record will be placed in the
rapidly-expanding "fictional" list. I will not take the time to see it
because it cannot be established as a factual record without collecting
it...Accidentals actually mean very little; their real scientific
interest lies in why or how they reached Ohio, by being wind-blown or
through directional loss; in other words by either physical or mental
deficiencies or both. There is little doubt in my mind that over the
past 12,000 years every species of eastern North American birds and most
western North American birds have been present and unobserved in Ohio at
some time.
My not accepting photographic proof is because even the actual specimen
that is collected can be misidentified. A good example is the frequently
published record of the Artic [sic] Loon Gavia arctica collected 19
February 1909 in Ashtabula County. This was accepted by the AOU and
everyone else as the only authentic Ohio record until the Oberlin
collection, which housed it for almost 60 years, was incorporated in the
Ohio State collections. Then we discovered it was a Red-throated Loon.
The excellent photograph of the Rufous-necked Sandpiper seen in
September in Ashtabula County is a fine photograph of a spring-plumaged
[bird]...I was given a beautiful photograph of a Long-billed Dowitcher
which I collected immediately after the picture was taken. The skin is
unquestionably a Long-bill, the photo unquestionably a Short-bill
because of the slight angle at which the picture of the head was taken.
A few years ago 200 of us saw a Green-tailed Towhee within a mile of my
house at a feeder. The owner of the feeding station where it constantly
free-loaded called it "Rocky." Obviously a bird with a Christian name
cannot be collected so the record will be forgotten in a few years,
which I guess is the best thing. Were I to accept that record and your
photographs I would of necessity have to accept records of over 10,000
Red-legged Kittiwakes and California Gulls on Lake Erie and sight
records of over 50 other species. The life of a scientist or a curator
is not a popular or happy one."
Few readers of this letter will, I think, agree with everything
Trautman says, but we must acknowledge the contributions of his shotgun.
Bill Whan
Columbus
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