law news and legalese

[Kenelm Philip]

	In response to Jim Kruse' posting (and please note that I am _not_
a lawyer, so can only guess):

	The Lacey Act states it is unlawful to "...import, export, trans-
port, sell, receive, acquire, or purchase..." any wildlife "...taken...
in violation of any law...". I do not know if "acquire" includes the act
of taking the wildlife--if it does, then simply capturing butterflies in
National Parks (without a permit) is a Lacey Act matter.
	I had always heard that carrying unlawfully taken wildlife across
a state line was specifically forbidden by the Lacey Act--but the only
reference I can find in my copy of the Act involves improper _marking_
of containers in interstate commerce or export/import.  The term 'transport'
in the Act is defined as 'moving.....by any means' without any mention
of state borders.

	So I have no idea why Teobaldelli was hit with transporting rather
than with illegal collecting--unless there's something in 50 CFR that's
relevant.

	Kruse added that he did not support the act of collecting in Nat-
ional Parks or other protected areas. Please note that the crime is not
simply _collecting_ in a National Park. There are many valid reasons for
collecting insects in National Parks, and I have done so myself numerous
times--sometimes at the express invitation of NPS. The crime is collecting
_without a permit_. National Parks, in most cases, were not established to
protect endangered species of insects--and many insects in the parks are
in no sense endangered or threatened, and may be collected in reasonable
numbers without doing harm. 

							Ken Philip
fnkwp at aurora.alaska.edu