Bird conservation status and cultural values in Indigenous Mexican communities: towards a bioculturally informed conservation policy.

Background: We summarize comparative ethnoornithological data for ten Mexican Indigenous communities, an initial step towards a comprehensive archive of the avian diversity conserved within Mexico's Indigenous territories. We do so by counting highlighted species listed for bird conservation status on widely recognized "red lists" and their cultural value to build biocultural policies in Mexico for their conservation.

Methods: Indigenous bird names for each study site were determined to allow calculation of the "Scientific Species Recognition Ratio" (SSRR) for high cultural value birds obtained across communities.

Alternative ways of representing Zapotec and Cuicatec folk classification of birds: a multidimensional model and its implications for culturally-informed conservation in Oaxaca, México.

Background: We report on a comparative ethno-ornithological study of Zapotec and Cuicatec communities in Northern Oaxaca, Mexico that provided a challenge to some existing descriptions of folk classification. Our default model was the taxonomic system of ranks developed by Brent Berlin.

Methods: Fieldwork was conducted in the Zapotec village of San Miguel Tiltepec and in the Cuicatec village of San Juan Teponaxtla, using a combination of ethnographic interviews and pile-sorting tests.