OC considers policy change to limit services to members of OC societies

[Laura Bies]

The board of the Ornithological Council is considering adopting a new policy that would restrict the assistance of the OC staff on permitting and animal welfare issues to those individuals who are members of the 10 societies that currently make up the Ornithological Council. This change is due to the withdrawal of financial support by the American Ornithological Society as of 1July  2020.

Almost all funding for the Ornithological Council’s activities come from its member societies, with some coming from individual donors. The Ornithological Council (OC) was founded in 1992 as a non-profit organization by the American Ornithologists' Union, Association of Field Ornithologists, Cooper Ornithological Society, Pacific Seabird Group, Raptor Research Foundation, Waterbird Society, and Wilson Ornithological Society. The Society for the Conservation and Study of Caribbean Birds (now BirdsCaribbean), Seccíon Mexicana del Consejo Internacional para la Preservacíon de las Aves (CIPAMEX), the Society of Canadian Ornithologists/Société des Ornithologistes du Canada, the Neotropical Ornithological Society, and the North American Crane Working Group have joined in recent years. The American Ornithologists’ Union and the Cooper Ornithological Society merged to form the American Ornithological Society in 2018 and then withdrew from the OC effective 1 July 2020. 

With the recent change in the OC’s funding, the Executive Director position has dropped from a full-time to a half-time position, and the organization is forced to consider this change in policy. For more information about this change, please visit: https://birdnet.org/oc-news/