[NHCOLL-L:5190] Re: :

[malcolm McCallum]

systematists are not dying out half as fast as those who study the natural
history of the species.
There are NSF grant programs to fund systematics and programs to fund
specifically the training of systematists.
Currently, there are NO programs to fund natural history nor to fund
training natural historians.

Naming an organism without describing its life history is sort of like
reading the title of a book and never opening it.
I suppose some students would not get that metaphor! :)
IF you don't know any of its life history its pretty darn difficult to
implement meaningful conservation strategies.

Malcolm McCallum


On Thu, Jan 20, 2011 at 10:52 AM, Judith Price <JPRICE at mus-nature.ca> wrote:

>  Interesting post on Wired Science:
> http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/01/extinction-of-taxonomists/#
>
>
>
> “We are currently in a biodiversity crisis. A quarter of all mammals face
> extinction, and 90 percent of the largest ocean fish are gone. Species are
> going extinct at rates equaled only five times in the history of life. But
> the biodiversity crisis we are currently encountering isn’t just a loss of
> species, it’s also a loss of knowledge regarding them.
>
> “Scientists who classify, describe and examine the relationships between
> organisms are themselves going extinct. The millions of dollars spent
> globally on technology to catalog species may actually be pushing out the
> people we rely upon: taxonomists and systematists. We’re like young children
> frantic to add new baseball cards to our collections, while the actual
> creators of the baseball cards themselves are vanishing.”
>
> Judith
>
> Judith C. Price
>
> Secretary, Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections
>
> Assistant Collections Manager, Invertebrates / Gestionnaire adjointe des
> collections invertébrés
>
> Canadian Museum of Nature / Musée canadien de la Nature
>
> PO Box 3443 Station D / CP 3443 Succ <<D>>
>
> Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6P4 CANADA
>
> Tel.613.566.4263 / Fax.613.364.4027
>
> jprice at mus-nature.ca
>
> @nature_jcp
>
> www.nature.ca / www.spnhc.org
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>



-- 
Malcolm L. McCallum
Managing Editor,
Herpetological Conservation and Biology

"Peer pressure is designed to contain anyone with a sense of drive" - Allan
Nation

1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea"  W.S. Gilbert
1990's:  Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss,
            and pollution.
2000:  Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction
          MAY help restore populations.
2022: Soylent Green is People!

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