listing FOR Conservation

Most birders keep some sort of a list. Some don't, but this is the South Africa Listers' Club column so if you're reading this, let's assume that you do.

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In decreasing scale, you have world listers, regional listers, country listers, provincial listers, local listers and garden listers. The tickophiles keep most or all of the above lists, while a select few eclectic enthusiasts even keep lists of birds seen or heard in movies.

Listing is a healthy outlet for the hairless ape's urge to hunt and collect (or gather) that has been instilled in us (particularly males) throughout human evolution. For many of us, this becomes a primary need alongside eating and sleeping, and sometimes even replaces or inhibits the last of the three primitive functions (just ask all the birding divorcees). Listing can provide a target for birding – and never-ending motivation for travel, learning and frivolous expenditure.

Keeping lists is a deeply personal exercise, but it needn’t end there. One of the most important ways you can give back to the conservation of birds is to submit your lists to one or more citizen science projects.

Citizen science is the collection of scientific data by non-traditional scientists within a set of well-defined, rigorous protocols. The data are then aggregated into a meaningful dataset. By involving laymen, projects are able to collect data from wider areas, over longer timescales and from more sources than would be possible if the small project team undertook the task itself. If the initial protocols are well set up with directions that are clear and reliably followed by the observers, then citizen science can produce uniquely vast and useful datasets that can stand up to scrutiny and statistical analysis.