Butterfly counts and money

[James J. Kruse]

On Fri, 27 Jun 1997, Dawn, Douglas wrote:
> 
> The system could be something like this: 1- estimate total publication
> cost for next year.  2- spread over sales this year 3- put difference in
> bank account managed by NABA/Xerces.  4- solicit tax deductable
> contributions to start program, or phase in by progressive reduction of
> $3. (I assume the current $3 is tax deductable??).

5- provide counters with an abbreviated "treasurer's report" explaining
what is being done with the money.  A point of my posting was that many
counters do not know what the money is used for.  This is a simple PR move
that can only help.

> Not that anyone anywhere with the resources to count and identify
> butterflies couldn't ante up the $3.  I think this is clearly that some
> people are having problems with the concept which could be viewed as
> having a flawed method for assigning cost to those creating the value to
> begin with.

I don't think $3 is the problem.  See above comment.

> Imagine if we charged contributers $1 per lep observation to officially
> include in the sources generating range maps and original research.

Vanity aside, it is common courtesy to acknowledge the people whom have
helped you in your research when you publish.

> Perhaps this issue was not originally thought out well for some
> potential contributers and has now become institutionalized.

Perhaps if organizers explained clearly what was going on, the
contributors would be more contented.  I consider the below to be an
acceptable answer to my original questions:

>  Paul_Opler at NBS.GOV (Paul Opler) [Count Co-editor and NABA V.P.]
> writes:
> 
> >      (snip)             Quite simply, the money is used to
> > defray the cost of the count publication. The money collected
> > doesn't quite cover costs, but sales of the publication
> > finish up the costs. It certainly not a profit-making
> > activity. For further breakdown, you might write Jeff a note.

Cheers!
Jim Kruse
University of California at Berkeley
Dept. of Environ Sci, Policy and Mgmt.
Div. of Insect Biology
Sperling Lab
201 Wellman Hall
Berkeley, California, 94720-3113