Re- Government Agencies Kno

[Neil Jones]

In message <n1336595446.5934 at tikal.biosci.arizona.edu> bruce_walsh at TIKAL.BIOSCI.ARIZONA.EDU writes:
>                        Subject:                               Time:9:42 AM
>   OFFICE MEMO          Re: Government Agencies Know Best      Date:9/29/97
> 
> Re some of the discussion on releases"
> 
> "Last spring, when this was last thrashed out, plenty of scientists had 
> their say. You can find this stuff in Deja news if you care to look. 
> Surely you don't want us to go through all of it again? 
> The real problem is not that it gums up their studies. It's that it 
> actually harms the butterfly populations it purports to help."
> 
> Actually, I know of no cases where this has been demonstrated, or even
> reasonably suggested.

I think by concentrating your thoughts on your specialist knowledge, the benefit
of which I am sure we all feel, you have forgotten one of the arguments.

Here in the UK there has been damage to the efforts to conserve a rare species
of checkerspot ( Eurodryas = Euphydryas aurinia. We call it the Marsh
Fritillary)  by misguided individuals introducing it into new areas.
Well conducted research has shown that out of _fifty_six attempts _none_
has succeded in the long term. These sites do last for a short while
and it is here that the problems occur. 

1. They give a false impression that the species is more abundant than it is.
  This makes it more difficult to fight for sites to be conserved.

2. Conservation effort is wasted on "false" sites leaving proper sites with
less attention being paid to them.

  In fact, a number of population genetic arguments
> (discussed on this list-server) suggest that release of genetically
> non-adaptive stock will have trivial (at best) impact on local stocks.
> 
> Bruce Walsh
> 
> "amateur educator too? or are there letters after your name?"  
> 
> Since you asked,  Ph.D., Associate Professor (Department of Ecology
> Evolutionary Biology, Committee on Genetics, Committee on Applied Mathematics,
> University Biosafety Committee)
> 
> Perhaps this is a good time to plug our forthcoming genetics text
> "Genetics and analysis of quantitative characters", 990pp,
> 
> details @
> http://nitro.biosci.arizona.edu/zbook/book.html

-- 
Neil Jones- Neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk "The beauty and genius of a work of art
may be reconceived, though its first material expression be destroyed; a
vanished harmony may yet again inspire the composer; but when the last
individual of a race of living things breathes no more another heaven and
another earth must pass before such a one can be again." William Beebe