To follow up on Bill's response, the Ohio Bird Records Committee is not at all involved in what you can "count". That's between you and the ABA if you submit your lists to them, or between you and your conscience when it comes to your personal lists. And the OBRC also doesn't generally make decisions about whether an introduced population has become "established" (whatever that means). We do keep the official state list, so that issue might someday come up with another species. But Trumpeter Swan is on the list based on 19th century records; when or whether the modern population has become established won't change that. As for counting Ohio Trumpeter Swans, I certainly don't. I would have to hunt for the actual ABA definition, but as I recall, it involves a population sustaining its numbers for a decade or so after humans stop introducing new ones. We're nowhere near that point with Trumpeter Swans. We may not know the origin of a particular bird seen away from the release sites, but we can say with very good confidence that it's either a release bird, or at most only a couple of generations removed. Either way, it's not ABA countable. Countability is about whether the population of the species is established, not whether the individual bird was released. We have no idea yet whether the population of Trumpeter Swans will sustain itself over time, or whether it will gradually disappear after we stop cranking out new ones. Until we do know (and that may take a couple of decades yet), they're not countable under ABA rules. To broaden the discussion, the same issue pertains to urban Peregrine Falcons, the descendants of hacked Ospreys, etc. Of course, truly wild individuals of those species certainly occur in Ohio, so deciding which individual birds you can count with a clear conscience is much more difficult. John Habig wrote: > This question is addressed more to the OBRC but I posted it here because > I hear the question raised quite often. > > When (or where) can you count Trumpeter Swans in Ohio? I know that ODNR > released them at Killdeer, Ottawa, and the Wilds and that these are > technically not ABA countable, but what if you see them somewhere else > and they are not tagged and appear to have gotten there by their own > means? > > > John Habig > 261 Lantis Dr. > Carlisle, Ohio 45005 > [log in to unmask] > > ______________________________________________________________________ > > Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. > Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. > Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. > > You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: > http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS > Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask] > > -- -- Ned Keller [log in to unmask] ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]