Talk:Fauna of Scotland

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Good article Fauna of Scotland has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can delist it, or ask for a reassessment.
An entry from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on January 23, 2007.
A summary of this article appears in Scotland.
This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:
This article has an assessment summary page.

A request has been made for this article to be copyedited by the League of Copyeditors. The progress of its reviewers is recorded below. The League is always in need of editors with a good grasp of English to review articles. Visit the Project page if you are interested in helping.
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[edit] Old comments

The production of this first draft raised several problems that have been addressed as follows.

In order to avoid the article resembling a list more closely than it already does, Latin names have generally been avoided except in images and where otherwise required.
Whilst the focus of the article is identifying the uniqueness of the fauna, this has to be seen in context of the wider European scene. If the Highlands and Islands were not part of the country the differences with both the rest of the UK and Europe would be much less pronounced. There may then be what appears at first sight as undue emphasis on the north and west.
The use of Niall Benvie's Scotland's Wildlife as a significant source is not ideal. It is a recent work carrying an NTS impression, but Benvie is not a professional zoologist. User:Dhmellor has already caught him out once - see User talk:Ben MacDui/Archive 1#Black Rats in Scotland.
My knowledge of invertebrate species is particularly weak and no doubt there are numerous very notable facts which have been omitted.
The inter-relationships between the sections are clumsy in places. Hopefully I can return to this when fresh perspective returns.
There appear to be very few images available of fauna actually taken in Scotland. Some therefore may be of non-Scottish variants.
If there is agreement on the use of capitals in species' names I have not come across it. For consistency I have simply capitalised them all.

Finally, my original intention was to fill a gap on the Scotland page, there being no 'main article' of this name. However the length that this page has already reached suggests it may itself become a summary with pointers to other main articles. Ben MacDui (Talk) 21:21, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] taxonomy used

Which taxonomy was used for the seabirds? Cause the fllowing sentence doesn't make sense "This section incorporates the orders Procellariiformes, Pelecaniformes, Lari and Alcae." Lari is a suborder, and the Alcids are in Lari, not their own suborder (usually). Sabine's Sunbird talk 22:28, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I am in no position to argue from a position of taxonomic knowledge. In a very early draft I simply copied the taxonomic list from List of British birds: non-passerines so that I could keep track of all the sections as they developed and I think the wording simply mixes up orders and suborders in a vain attempt to avoid a complex sentence structure. My concern was that 'seabirds' was too vague, but on reflection the wikipedia article on this subject is pretty clear (wherein the Alcids and Lari are separate). I will remove the sentence on the grounds of redundancy. This article is in urgent need of professional support and your further comments are most welcome.Ben MacDui (Talk) 23:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Wikibirds Peer Review

I'm responing to the request for a peer edit on the Wikibirds page. I looked over the section on avifauna, and it looks good. Keep in mind that I'm not very familiar with the avians of Scotland, however! If there is anything in particular that you'd like me to do in that section, I'll be happy to give it a try. It seems to me that you've researched everything thoroughly, though! Hey jude, don't let me down 20:08, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA on hold

The article is very-well done, and I will soon pass it as GA according to the GA criteria. There are just a few things that need to be fixed:

  1. In the intro, remove the space between the [1] [2] inline citations.
  2. Wikilink full dates such as 31 March 2003 in the Habitats section.
  3. In the Mammals section, put a hyphen in between "two thirds"; unless this is not common in European English.
  4. "The populations of a third of the land mammal species are thought to be in decline." Possibly expand on this sentence about why they are declining if there is information about it.
All the above done.

5. "75% of the UK's Red Squirrels are to be found in Scotland." Change to "are found in"

Done

and add an inline citation.

This is taken from ref #25 listed at the end of the next sentence.

6. In the Rodents, Insectivores and Lagomorphs section, there is a misspelled word: thoughout -> throughout.

Done

7. "There are no resident bats on the Shetland islands, the only records there having been migrants or vagrants." Change the comma to a semicolon or reword.

Done

8. "The primate Homo s. sapiens is well represented, although the introduced marsupial, the Red-necked Wallaby, is confined to a colony on an island in Loch Lomond." Is the first part saying that Scotland has humans as some kind of joke or is there something I'm not reading correctly? Sounds kind of weird to me.

Well, I thought it was light-hearted rather than a joke. H. sapiens is a mammal after all and it seemed a shade supine to simply omit this. On the other hand any reference to the subject is almost bound to create a 'double-take'. I'll remove it if you think it's unhelpful.

9. There are a lot of statistics throughout the article about number of species, amount of animals left, etc. Make sure that these are up to date with any new information/data that is available.

I intend to.

10. Throughout out the article are a few single statements standing by themselves. Either incorporate them into another paragraph or add more content.

One of the challenges I found in drafting the article is that it is difficult to avoid the text becoming a list. The Conservation organisations section does suffer from this, but there are links to almost everything except the JNCC, which is a committee rather than a body. I've been through the article again and I didn't see anything specific that stood out as needing attention. If you can give me an example or two I will certainly look into this.

11. Add a wikilink for coral reefs in the Fish and sea life section.

Done

12. Add an inline citation to "Further action on a much wider scale may be required. According to a recent report "Scotland's marine life could be almost wiped out within 50 years unless tough action is taken to manage the way humans use the seas"."

This entire para is in fact all covered by citation #71.

13. If you can, move the images around more to be more uniform and adjust some of the image sizes (maybe make them the same size as it's interesting to see a bug larger than a snake).

I changed everything to 200px, except the opening eagle (250px) as it is in a place with a lot of white space, and the Scots Pines (150px) as 200px made it too large. However, I am not sure if this does the trick. If not, please advise.

14. Go through the external links and see if there are any links that are not necessary and can be removed.

Removed SOC and BTO. The others are all mentioned in the text, and/or have rather weak Wikipedia articles except the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (which it seemed important to have a link to) and the Scottish Seabird Centre as it is the seabirds that are especially important internationally. Ben MacDui (Talk) 12:20, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Most of the above are just suggestions on improving the article, so address them if you wish. Do fix the grammar and other issues within seven days and I'll pass the article. Let me know if you have any questions or when you're done with the page leave a message on my talk page and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. --Nehrams2020 08:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA passed

Good job on fixing the above suggestions so quickly. I have passed this article according to the GA criteria. On a side note, for the images, you have all of them on the right side with one picture of a deer on the left, I'd either put them all on the right side or alternate the images. For the homo sapiens line, although I don't think you need it in there, I can see why you would include it. Maybe expand upon it with the human population, history of their arrival, etc. Make sure that all new information is properly sourced and verified, and continue to improve the article (maybe consider a peer review and then FAC). Again, good job on helping to improve the quality of articles on Wikipedia! --Nehrams2020 18:31, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation questions

[edit] Sparrowhawk

In the section Fauna_of_Scotland#Raptors, the term sparrowhawk is included. This link leads to a disambiguation page. Could some knowledgeable person edit this link so it leads to a proper article? Thanks. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 15:37, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Fixed. Thanks for pointing this out. Ben MacDui (Talk) 09:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wildlife of Scotland Merge

There is a case for keeping the Wildlife of Scotland article in that 'wildlife' includes plants, and a summary style introduction to fauna, flora habitats etc. would be useful. However in its current form it adds little or nothing not already included in 'Fauna'. I am afraid I lack the time at present to get 'wildlife' up-to-speed, so merger it may have to be. Ben MacDui (Talk) 08:18, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. I am going to rename it to Natural history, which was needed anyway. Removing merge templates. Ta. --Mais oui! 08:46, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA Sweeps (on hold)

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force in an effort to ensure all listed Good articles continue to meet the Good article criteria. In reviewing the article, I have found there are some issues that may need to be addressed.

  • The "Conservation Organizations" section should either be converted to one large paragraph or removed, because it not only goes into unnecessary detail about individual organizations, but also is a list and should be converted to prose.

I will check back in no less than seven days. If progress is being made and issues are addressed, the article will remain listed as a Good article. Otherwise, it may be delisted (such a decision may be challenged through WP:GAR). If improved after it has been delisted, it may be nominated at WP:GAN. Feel free to drop a message on my talk page if you have any questions, and many thanks for all the hard work that has gone into this article thus far. Regards, Corvus coronoides talk 23:36, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The list has been so converted. Although the wording has been simplified slightly I have not reduced the detail. I honestly don't think a sentence about the dozen or so most important bodies working in the field is out of place, and nor do I think the information is collated anywhere else. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 13:27, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, well I've passed this article now. It's truly an excellent article, and I would recommend taking it to FAC soon. I think it's FA quality, or will be with minor tweaks. Corvus coronoides talk 17:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
You are most kind - I will place the article on the conveyor belt...Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 14:15, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Vendace species in Scotland

The article includes two references to the Vendace:

  1. "Native species include Allis Shad, Brown Trout, European Eel, River Lamprey and Vendace."
  2. "The Vendace has not been seen in Scottish freshwaters since 1980, although attempts to re-introduce it to the Lochmaben area have been discussed."

I read these two statements to mean that the vendace has certainly been native but may well now be extinct in Scotland.

However, both references link to the Vendace disambiguation page which identifies two separate species: Coregonus albula & Coregonus vandesius.

The Coregonus albula page states that it is "found in lakes and rivers in northern Europe... and in some lochs in Scotland (Lochmaben, near Dumfries) and lakes in England."

The Coregonus vandesius page states that "The vendace has only ever been known as a native species at four sites: Bassenthwaite Lake and Derwent Water in the English Lake District, and the Castle Loch and Mill Loch in Lochmaben", "The species is thought to have died out at all of these sites except Derwent Water." and "Coregonus vandesius was introduced to Loch Skene in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, in the 1990s..."

So, assuming that there are two separate species, did both used to occur at Lochmaben with C. albula still present but C. vendesius now believed locally extinct?

Statement #1 above is unclear given the reference to a disambiguation page and statement #2 appears to be inconsistent with the two species pages.

Could anyone who knows the current status of these fish please clarify the references in this article (and if appropriate in the two species pages)? Thanks! Nigel Campbell (talk) 21:46, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. It seems clear the re-introduction was successfully undertaken. I am not sure what to do about the dab issue as there seems to be confusion as to whether there are one or two species. (My guess is they are generally treated as one, at least in non-scientific publications). The BBC article also refers to time dates that are not consistent with the other sources. I'll look into this further and see what can be done. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 08:01, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

According to SNH C. vandesius is present but C. albula is not [1]. I will make some suitable changes here and on the species pages. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 08:41, 17 May 2008 (UTC)