<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">Some bird collections
have received communications from one of the national parks asking
for verification of specimens in the collection that were
collected in that national park and asking the museum to sign a
loan agreement. <br>
<br>
Have any other collections received these communications? If so,
from which parks?<br>
<br>
You may want to hold off on signing the loan agreements as we are
continuing to pursue this alternate "custodianship" agreement and
have been making real progress. If you sign the loan agreement,
you will be precluding yourself from taking advantage of the
custodianship agreement which is a much better option. At least
until the loan agreement expires, or unless the NPS later agrees
to terminate the loan agreement and replace it with the
custodianship agreement.<br>
<br>
I am guessing that this effort is being made in response to the
2010 report of the Department of the Interior Inspector General
that soundly condemned the NPS for having no idea where anything
is. I'd give you a link but the DOI IG website is down while being
migrated to another site so it isn't available at the moment.
Obviously, it is a good thing that the NPS is taking measures to
find out where things are, but it is worrisome that some of you
are being asked to sign loan agreements without being told that
there may soon be another option. <br>
<br>
Ellen<br>
</font>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Ellen Paul
Executive Director
The Ornithological Council
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:ellen.paul@verizon.net">ellen.paul@verizon.net</a>
Phone (301) 986 8568
"Providing Scientific Information about Birds<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BIRDNET">"
http://www.nmnh.si.edu/BIRDNET"</a>
</pre>
</body>
</html>