re park collecting

[MCCORKLE, DAVID - Natural Science]

Ken Philips notes the distinction between legal and harmful 
collecting.  Perhaps the following account will help clarify the 
issue and thus help avoid a lot of anxiety.  I intend no disrespect 
of park rangers, only an attempt to illustrate a point.

On August 5, 1997 I was standing by my car parked at the rangers' 
headquarters in Crater Lake National Park while I waited for a family 
member to use a public phone.  I noticed a dead specimen of 
Parnassius clodius on the pavement in the vacant parking spot next to 
mine, obviously having fallen from a vehicle that had been parked 
there.  It happened that a distinguished park ranger, carrying a 
brief case, walked by.  "Excuse me sir" I said.  "If I were to have 
reported the person who killed this butterfly," now pointing at its 
lifeless somewhat mangled remains, "would park officials have  
prosecuted them?"  "We would have to proove criminal intent" he 
replied.  "Suppose, though, that I were to pick it up and keep it?"
"We would then prosecute you" he said.  "What if I were to step on 
it?"  "We would prosecute you for harming wildlife" he replied and 
walked off, as though annoyed at my persistance.

The point is that it is illegal to collect insects, dead or alive, in 
National Parks, etc.  It is not illegal to kill them accidentally, or 
even to prevent them from annoying you, such as mosquitoes 
might do.  Thus the act of killing an insect incriminates you only if 
you wish to put the insect to a useful purpose.  (I'm not sure how 
purposely stepping on an already dead insect fits in here.)  
Anxiety can be avoided if one realizes that logic is not an issue, 
legality is.

If I really wanted to do research in Crater Lake National Park, of 
course, I could apply for a permit.  (I thought that the ranger might 
have offered information on the permitting process, but he did not.)   
However, this is a time consuming process that must be done in 
advance, and, at this point, I have other places to spend my major 
efforts.  By the way, not much is known about the insect populations 
of Crater Lake National Park.  

Dave McCorkle