"identify" Wild Animals

[qwazse 4342]

Morning or afternoon. I also maintain a collection of plaster casts of various tracks and skulls as voucher specimens, just in case there's any question.

Oh thumbslips! I meant to +1 this. sorry for tarnishing your rep, Pack.

[TAHAWK 1420]

Insects aren't on the list in 2nd class requirements. Has to be bird, mammal, reptiles, fish or mollusks. 

The training syllabus from BSA also lists "insects," "invertebrates," "crustaceans," and "amphibians."  That's good enough for me.  When BSA itself creates an ambiguity, I resolve it in favor of the Scouts every time.

 

 

Regarding what "identify" means, please address this, gang:  The Scout out in the woods says he clear saw a Goldfinch.  He can describe the bird's appearance and can even describe its distinctive flight pattern.  He tells this to whoever is authorized to sign him off.  Should he be signed-off?

 

The "evidence" option is easy, as is the plant ID (He can lead you up to the plant and point.)  It's only the animal ID where I am being questioned.

Edited May 20, 2015 by TAHAWK

[qwazse 4342]

OK scratch the insects and arachnids. The PLs are the ones who actually sign off, and they take the requirements quite literally. I usually encourage the boys to note off-list critters anyway. If they are attending to lesser fauna they may soon find a robin or jay or largemouth bass that will do the same.

 

However, I'm easily mesmerized by rare items cleaverly identified. I wouldn't be beneath counting anything with a "cool factor" to it.

[Gone 435]

A scout is honest. If he knows that much he's probably on track.

 

We accept any living non-plant organize. Had a kid find a velvet ant once. High cool,factor.

Edited May 21, 2015 by Bad Wolf

[TAHAWK 1420]

You have Velvet Ants?!  Very cool.

[Stosh 3452]

it says 10 kinds of wild animals, for the requirement. 

Yes, for the requirement, but for fun and keeping up with the observation skills we make the requirement into a game.  The thread title just said 10 wild animals, thus the boys will jump on that and win with a small herd of deer or a flock of birds.  I enjoy the twisting of logic as part of the game.  It gets the boys thinking all the different possibilities they could come up to win the game based on the rule.

[packsaddle 753]

qwazse, it was the entire PHYLUM of Arthropoda. Not to mention Echinodermata, Platyhelminthes, Porifera, Bryozoa, Cnidaria, etc, etc.

I interpret the requirement as those listed things being EXAMPLES of organisms to look for and not exclusive of all others. In that sense, Mollusca exemplifies all of the invertebrates. I just happens that the thoughtless person making the list - listed vertebrates for all the rest of the examples. From this I infer that all Chordates and invertebrates are good for the list.

 

As for the visual sighting of the bird, I require them to show me or hand me their photo that they just took with the phone. A feather is good though or a bird song that we both hear.

[TAHAWK 1420]

We do a contest, Newbies get to search the whole forest for the 10 animals, the older scouts are restricted to a 3' square randomly selected on the ground.  However, sitting there studying that 3' square, they hear a cardinal, they can count it or if an animal appears within their sight they can count it as well, but they cannot move from their original position.

 

Only the first person spotting something counts.  If there's a deer, the first one to call it gets credit, no one else can claim it.

 

Of course there's a bit of cheating that can be done and still win.  

 

The rules say 10 wild animals.  A herd of 10 deer all identified as deer is an instant win.  If one doesn't like that, then make better rules.  I teach my boys to think outside the box.  Love it when they out-smart the adults.

 

 

Making it a game is almost always a winner.

 

As to your last input, that's why I asked about "kinds."  Requirement:  "Identify or show evidence of at least 10 kinds of animals."

 

Around here, birds seem to be the lion's share of what is seen, especially for the Scouts who can ID them by call.  

 

Male Cardinals seem almost too easy.

[Stosh 3452]

What's really fun is identifying 10 different plants while going down the freeway at 65 mph.  Works really nice when all the flowers in the ditches are in full bloom.

 

Sometimes it gets so serious we have to take the back roads because the boys want to stop and take a closer look.  Can't do that on the freeway.

[CalicoPenn 729]

Apparently, per the BSA list, frogs don't count either.  The list includes reptiles but leaves off amphibians. 

 

The requirement states Identify or Show Evidence.  My thinking is that if a Scout is with his patrol/troop and hears a goldfinch and identifies it as a goldfinch, it's good. If he shows me a picture of a goldfinch he took on his phone or camera, it's good. If he's just telling us what a goldfinch sounds like or flys like, that's great but that's not actually showing evidence or identifying a goldfinch - that could be repeating something he learned in a book without ever having seen the bird.

 

My opinion is that to "pass" the identify portion, it has to be done in person with witnesses from the Patrol or Troop.  For show evidence, I think photos, or a physical specimen (feather, antler, etc.) is needed.  I accept photos of the animal or evidence of the animal (a nest, a burrow hole, scat, feather, etc.)

 

Kinds?  I read that as species - identifying 10 cardinals doesn't do it - Identifying 10 different species (kinds) or birds meet the requirement.

 

I'm with Packsaddle - I read the parenthetical listing as examples of animals, not as a limiting list.  I'm not about to tell a Scout he can't count the eastern chorus frog or the crayfish he's identified because they aren't on the list.  I do insist, however, that they can't just say ant or butterfly or dragonfly or snake or frog or crayfish - he has to tell me the common species name - deer doesn't do it - White-tailed Deer does.  If you're going to include a butterfly, you can take some time to get it down to it's common name, or at the very least, a likely common name (there are a lot of sulphers and skippers in the butterfly world, and Yellow Sulpher may be as close as one can get to some of these butterflies if you don't have them in hand and have experience telling the difference between the different species of yellow sulphers.

 

There is one other part of the requirement that is often overlooked but I think is important to follow.  The requirement says to identify or show evidence of the wild animals in your COMMUNITY (and I don't count feral dogs and cats as wild animals - they're feral domestic animals, they aren't wild animals.  Invasives?  They're still wild animals, they're just not where they "belong" - and Starlings and House Sparrows are technically invasives but they've been in the US since the 1800's - that genies out of the bag).  If your community has a forest in it, that's great but if you have to drive to another community to get to a forest, I wouldn't count it - fine for practice but not for the requirement.  It really shouldn't be that hard to come up with 10 kinds of animals in one's neighborhood, let alone community, without having to travel. 

[Stosh 3452]

"Identify or show evidence of at least ten kinds of wild animals (birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, mollusks) found in your community."

 

White tailed deer vs. deer is an addition to the requirement.  Deer, rabbit, mouse is good enough for me.  If BSA wanted it more specific than general common names, they would have included it in the requirement.  Now if the boy goes with Cotton tailed Rabbit and then sees and identifies a Jack rabbit, he gets two checks.

[TAHAWK 1420]

Again, the official BSA training syllabus on the animal ID requirement says:

 

"birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, amphibians, invertebrates (insects, spiders, crustaceans, snails, clams, oysters, mussels, squids)." [punctuation as in original]

 

 

We only have White-Tailed Deer. 

 

Would "bird" be enough?   "Snake"?  "Worm"?  

Edited May 21, 2015 by TAHAWK

[packsaddle 753]

Would "bird" be enough?   "Snake"?  "Worm"?  

No. Common names such as 'robin' or 'killdeer' would be needed for birds. 'Scarlet king snake' for snakes. I would let them go with something more generic for invertebrates like: 'crayfish', depending on what it is. However if they know what something as distinctive as a zebra mussel is they should distinguish it from, say, a heel splitter or an Asiatic clam. The reasoning is that while the distinction between some decapods, for example, may be difficult, the distinction between things that are obviously different should be noticed and named accordingly. 

I also allow them to take it to a very small scale, such as different kinds of ants. One boy was even pretty good at soil arthropods.

 

Thus far, no one has picked lice out of someone else's hair....at least not for this requirement.

 

Edit: Thanks TAHAWK, I hereby retract my condemnation of the requirement...but not the phrasing.

Edited May 21, 2015 by packsaddle

[Stosh 3452]

Again, the official BSA training syllabus on the animal ID requirement says:

 

"birds, mammals, reptiles, fish, amphibians, invertebrates (insects, spiders, crustaceans, snails, clams, oysters, mussels, squids)." [punctuation as in original]

 

 

We only have White-Tailed Deer. 

 

Would "bird" be enough?   "Snake"?  "Worm"?  

 

If I have mentally challenged scouts in my unit, yes, Bird, Snake and Worm would be plenty and maybe bug wouldn't count but butterfly, bee and ant would do very nicely.  One has to remember we aren't talking college students here, we're talking 11 year old boys.  Expecting species and genus is way over the top on what the requirement expects.

[packsaddle 753]

It's 'genus and species' and that's not what anyone is asking for. A boy ought to be able to tell the difference between a bumblebee and a honeybee. Or a bullfrog and a tree frog or a buzzard and a hummingbird.