Who killed cock robin (and the moths)?

[John Grehan]

 I
>mean that if a single person kill tons of insect for his collection, it will
>have no major impact. But if everyone do this, the impact will be bigger.

I'm not aware of this kind of impact being significant relative to habitat
destruction
or degradation, or in thos cases where species are sufficiently localized
that intensive collecting would result in drastic population reduction or
their elimination.


>> Really?
>
>You don't agree ???? We need to kill an insect if we want to get his DNA for
>analyse...

What I was questioning was your automatic presumtion that it was ok
to kill for such reasons. Perhaps you are correct, but its just a point
of view. In fact I share the preference to avoid indiscriminate killing
even though I use trap methods that kill non-target insects, but I do
not presume from this preference to say everyone else "should"
do the same.

>
>I said
>> >When we drive a car, we kill lots of insects. But we don't drive the car
>FOR
>> >kill insects, we drive for travel.

It doesn't matter to the insect what our motive was, the result is
the same.

>
>You said
>> So accidental slaughter is ok. Hope the insects feel that way too.
>I never saw someone taking a car ride specially for killing insects !!!

I believe I recall an interesting construction for a net built on top of
a car to collect insects.

>Do you have a suggestion to replace cars?? Yes, hydrogene cars, electric
>cars.... The problem is not the cars, the problem is that there are too many
>people -> too many cars...

I said there was no "off course" because if humans as a whole decided
to live differently we wouldn't have cars.

>Finally, you are not agree with any of the things i said...
>«Insignificant action» is better than nothing !!!!!

I meant insignificant in that the impact of deaths from cars has
no bearing (so far as I know) on the survivability of insect species.

Doug Yanega wrote

Is it my imagination or is this group getting worse than ever before?
PLEASE can people think a little bit more about whether their messages are
suited for the list, or just for private exchanges?

I am a bit puzzled by this objection. Is it unsuitable for the morality
or ethics of collecting to be discussed on the list? I do a lot of collecting,
and whether or not I agree with other viewpoints, I am interested in
reading and discussing them. I know that its a perenial issue, but that
doesn't detract from its value (at least to me).

John Grehan