Seabirds.net, PSG, and WSU

[Scott A Hatch]

To:        PSG Executive Council
       
Cc:        PSG Past Chairs
        World Seabird Union Board Members
        World Seabird Conference Executive Committee
        World Seabird Conference International Steering Committee
        World Seabird Monitoring Regional Coordinating Committee
        Seabirds.net Organizational Committee

Dear Colleagues,

The new organization (World Seabird Union, or WSU) created in the wake of the first World Seabird Conference (Victoria, BC, September 2010) is a consortium of pre-existing regional organizations and any future professional groups that may arise regionally.  It exists only by way of representation from cooperating organizations and is not envisioned to represent and serve the interests of individual seabird professionals in the manner of the Pacific Seabird Group, American Ornithologists’ Union, or other similar professional societies.  Regional seabird organizations may or may not choose to throw in together on future world seabird conferences, but in any event, such conferences are unlikely to be feasible, or even desirable, at any greater frequency than, say, 5-year intervals, and thus they will not supplant or diminish the importance of regional gatherings such as PSG’s annual meeting.

Seabirds.net is a website with a strategically chosen domain name.  Among the chief objectives of the WSU is the creation and sponsorship of world seabird databases served globally on the Internet (i.e., as components of Seabirds.net). Experience shows it will be impossible to overcome barriers to comprehensive data sharing unless contributors know they participate under the auspices of a genuinely neutral, all-encompassing worldwide body.  Any other model will fail due to a perceived usurpation of authority.  Seabirds.net is a crucial part of the solution to this problem, and the WSU will need the full cooperation and support of PSG and other regional organizations to succeed.  Far from being a competing web presence, Seabirds.net will likely raise awareness and use of PSG’s own content on the Internet through direct linkages to PSG pages from Seabirds.net.  It is vitally important for PSG, the world’s largest and most active seabird-oriented professional society, to continue to show leadership in this endeavor by fully supporting the WSU and its development of Seabirds.net.

I attach a copy of the Seabird Monitoring Committee’s 2012 report to the PSG Executive Council, as further explication of the connections, as I see them, between PSG (Seabird Monitoring Committee), the WSU, and Seabirds.net.

Respectfully yours,

Scott Hatch
Coordinator, PSG Seabird Monitoring Committee

[Grant Humphries]

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to you on behalf of the Seabirds.net organizational committee to express our support of the World Seabird Union and Seabirds.net

Since the World Seabird Conference in Victoria, BC, much progress has been made towards the official formation of the World Seabird Union. The WSU is meant to represent an organization made up of groups and does not consist of individual memberships. The formation of WSU is envisioned to represent a way of facilitating communication between seabird groups around the world, and in our opinion represents an asset for organizations such as PSG. Similarly, without groups such as PSG, The Seabird Group, Birdlife International Global Seabird Program, etc... the WSU will be unable to perform its functions as an organization. We would like to highlight that the leadership of a prestigious group such as PSG will help to encourage participation in this mutually beneficial venture. 

Seabirds.net is planned to act as a hub for communication and data sharing for the global seabird community. It is of importance to note that seabirds.net does not plan to compete with the individual websites of the various seabird programs (and groups) around the world.  Seabirds.net would like to take advantage of the content that already exists within the PSG website (and other similar group websites) in order to conglomerate information in one place via linking to www.pacificseabirdgroup.org.  We feel that by guiding users to websites such as the PSG home page, we are able to help in furthering communication between seabird professionals and students. Seabirds.net will act as a complementary system to the PSG website, and , raising awareness for PSG.

We fully support the WSU and Seabirds.net and hope that PSG will continue to act in a leadership role and lend their support fully to these ventures.  

Below are some comments from other members of the Seabirds.net organizational committee.

"I support the development of the WSU, because it represents an effort to increase collaboration and data-sharing among seabird professionals throughout the world.  The WSU would help facilitate communication among existing regional professional societies as well as unaffiliated professionals, with the goal of enhancing seabird research and conservation efforts on a global scale."
- Michelle Kappes

"I fully support the development of the WSU and believe it will help to address important marine bird issues and research that current professional societies would struggle to address.  The WSU's focus on facilitating research collaborations, data-sharing, conservation efforts, and networking opportunities will only help to strengthen and enrich the world's professional seabird community and our ability understand, monitor, conserve, and manage marine bird populations around the world."
- Peter Kappes

Sincerely, 

Grant Humphries

Coordinator - Seabirds.net organizational committee

--

PhD Candidate

University of Otago

Dunedin, NZ

https://sites.google.com/site/grwhumphries