Parks & collecting

[Kenelm Philip]

	Mark Walker asked, with regard to parks:

> If biting flies were to keep the tourists away, I wonder how much
> protection they would receive. How much should they receive?

In some of the Alaskan parks and wildlife refuges, biting flies are indeed
a major problem--and you are allowed to swat them to your heart's content.
Just don't try to take any of the corpses out of the park for your col-
lection! In practice, the rangers don't inspect your car for dead mosquitoes
littering the floor--but labeling one and adding it to your collection
would be a clear violation of the rules. Does this make sense? Not very
much, I fear--but, as the F&WS people say: "It's the law!" And I see little
prospect of that law changing in the near future, so collectors are just
going to have to live with the current situation.

	People have suggested opening National Parks to recreational insect
collecting--which in my opinion would do little harm in _most_ cases. On the
other hand, Doug Yanega recently pointed out that there are some insects
that produce small numbers of offspring, and could be severely impacted
by collecting. Most National Park staff know very little about either
insects in general or the insects within their parks--and are thus not
equipped to make wildlife management decisions about the allowable take
of insects. Furthermore, it appears to be a basic policy decision for the
entire National Park system that (with the single exception of fish, due
to a historical accident: Theodore Roosevelt was an ardent fisherman) _all_
the natural objects in a park, animate or inanimate, are the joint property
of all U.S. citizens and thus cannot be released into private hands, but
must, if removed from the park, be deposited in a public institution (not
including those dead mosquitoes on the floor of your car, of course).

	So people who 'just want to catch a few butterflies' are out of
luck. However, it _is_ possible for amateur lepidopterists to collect in
at least some National Parks--provided they want to develop an association
with some public institution, and take on some scientific project that
benefits from access to the Park fauna. And Harry Pavulaan is quite cor-
rect: there is some red tape involved in such collecting.

	In the case of Alaska, by the way, I know of only one case where
a _species_ of butterfly was obtained only on Federal land requiring
permits--and that species is common in the Yukon Territory on land that
does not require special permits (other than the general Yukon Scientific
Research License). All other Alaskan species can be obtained off Federal
land, or on unrestricted Federal land. The reason I collect in National
Parks is because I am studying the _distribution_ of species in Alaska--
not because I am trying to pick up new species (not that I'd mind if one
turned up.  :-)  ).

							Ken Philip
fnkwp at aurora.alaska.edu