Collecting Permit Ideas

[Esther Cornelius]

Jim : Archeology finances a lot of its exploration with advertisd digs
costing a lot + expenses. If some enterprising entomologist could
organize an expedition on behalf of his university dept. of lepid.
without too much padding, it could work. 

(1) It's not a tour. 

(2) The Univ would have authority to temporarily name unknown catches,
(perhaps with the collectors name), to be hashed out later (like
taxonomist are still doing to species discovered 200 years ago), & so
defeat the catch 22 requirement that unknown species be previously
named. The Univ. would probably want first dibs, but that may mean a big
expenditure to enlarge its collection facilities so perhaps the
collector could retain possession with the knowledge that his eternal
fame depends on careful preservation of the catch. possession could be
transferred but NOT SOLD. Likewise the collector need not retain actual
possession either, after all, schools legitimize our processes in the
name of universal knowledge, everything else is either greed or personal
spiritual stuff, in which case why not smuggle the bugs in & keep them
under your bed?    

(3) Everything is recorded so everyone is accountable.(in theory).
Bureaucrats love a paper trail.

(4) Once we're in back country, we could let our beards grow, form
secret socioties, become canabals, talk to space aliens & the usual
stuff.

It seems interfaceing for collectors would be in a universties charter,
what with deforestation & all. Some good URLs to include here might be
US Customs Service, the board of regents of say Cornell Univ., UC Davis,
UC Riverside, the Smithsonian (for pete's sake) etc etc. sorry I don't
have any, it's just a suggestion. 
Bill, 41 N Lat. 123 W Long.