Harlan's Hawk, Buteo jamaicensis harlani, has had a checkered taxonomic history since its description by Audubon (1830) from two specimens collected in Louisiana. It has at times been considered a separate species, a subspecies of the Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), or perhaps even a local color morph or unique immature plumage of the latter rather than a distinct taxon. Ridgway (1890) suggested it be treated as a distinct subspecies of the Red-tailed Hawk, but it was still considered by some to be a separate species as late as 1959 (AOU 1957, Gabrielson and Lincoln 1959). Studies by Swarth (1926), Mindell (1983), and Snyder and Snyder (1991) have now established that harlani is best treated as the local subspecies of the Red-tailed Hawk in western, central, and south-coastal Alaska, southwestern Yukon, and northwestern British Columbia (AOU 1998). This view, however, is still not unanimous (Dunne et al. 1988).