Hi Howard,
Yeap! your right I'm a bad girl for posting figures without giving them a context...
Okay, I suspect the low overseas number is due to only 1 person completing the census for from overseas.
I'm not sure how wide spread the distribution of the census forms are, but I suspect they only go to members of the Rare Poultry Society plus possibly those that come into contact with it at shows. I'm also no sure about the differentiation between owners and breeders between the 2 years or if it means the same thing.
Also the census is only good if everyone fills it in which I'm not sure that they do for example there are 9 breeders of Nankins listed on the breeders list for 2009 1 USA 8 UK which you'd think matches the number of owners they've published. However, I did fill in a census form but I'm not on the breeders list. So either 1 breeder didn't fill in the form or they have given up their birds...
I did do some mental arithmetic last night about who I know in the UK who had Nankins if they would be a member or not and how many birds they might have Males and Females. But I gave up. I suspect this is probably works out as a good estimate of the breeding population of Nankins in the UK if you assume that the number of breeding birds missed from the census is probably equal to that of the non-breeding birds counts out of the people who completed the forms. But it's probably not an good estimate for the total number of Nankins in the UK. You have to start somewhere though.
Lies, lies and statistics...
Mousy.
