Collecting anything and future nature interest

Doug Yanega dyanega at pop.ucr.edu
Mon Jun 28 23:35:31 EDT 1999


Paul wrote:

>Doug Yanega wrote:
>
>> At present, we have *no* option other
>> than regulating collecting of insects by applying the rules that control
>> the catching and killing of vertebrates. No one is now or is ever likely to
>> be willing to undertake the effort and expense of drafting a parallel set
>> of regulations, so we're stuck with blanket rules.
>
>NABA is certainly wlling to undertake the effort to not only discourage
>collecting but also
>to outright ban the raising and release of native butterflies.

This is certainly a rather different thing from anti-collecting laws; you
have, I think, hit upon one of those wonderful legislative
double-standards. It's legally okay to breed and release fish, because the
fish stocks would be depleted otherwise, and fishing license fees account
for a LOT of the US conservation budget. Therefore, they can't afford to
have a blanket law that might accidentally include fish. I would imagine
that if you really wanted to get the rules changed so you'd be able to
collect insects, this offers an example of how it might be done: if there
were insect collecting license fees, THEN they might see fit to make it
permissible, given that they could then generate money by doing so. The
problem is that there are way too few people (esp. relative to the number
of hunters and fishermen) to offset the cost of the extra bureaucracy.

Peace,


Doug Yanega       Dept. of Entomology           Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
                http://insects.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82



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