Fwd: Re: Yukon collecting license

[Chris J. Durden]

>Date: Sun, 11 Feb 2001 13:41:39 -0600
>To: "Ron Gatrelle" <gatrelle at tils-ttr.org>
>From: "Chris J. Durden" <drdn at mail.utexas.edu>
>Subject: Re: Yukon collecting 
>license
>
>Ron,
>    You are quite right. A collector carrying a license is relieved of the 
> nagging doubt that he may be in violation of some unknown, unpublicised 
> or unposted law or regulation. A national license would be most efficient 
> and the implementation could be financed by the sale of Butterfly Stamps 
> (analogous to Duck Stamps). Being able to show such a license to a 
> wildlife enforcement official when confronted while collecting would go a 
> long way towards defusing embarrasing (and legally hazardous situations) 
> generated by ignorance of the laws. It would also help legitimize our 
> vocation or avocation in the eyes of the public.
>    Such a license should not be just for butterfly collecting but should 
> cover all insects or all non-vertebrate animals together with a legal 
> definition of what an insect (or animal) is, that is based on some 
> replicable science. Think about collectors of beetles, spiders, snails, 
> rotifers. Is their life to be made miserable or truncated just because of 
> one lobbying group's antipathy towards butterfly collecting?
>    Personally I think a postgraduate degree in biology should be 
> sufficient license. After all why did we get the degrees if not to 
> qualify us to work in this field?
>    I am in full agreement with the necessity of reporting all findings to 
> the biological authority of the territory visited if this is a museum or 
> biological survey. This would however require healthy funding of such a 
> museum or biological survey. This could be accomplished by the sale of 
> Butterfly Stamps or Non-vertebrate Animal Stamps or General Wildlife 
> Stamps (does wildlife include plants, fungi, protists, bacteria, 
> archaebacteria or nannobacteria?) Better stop here before I turn over the 
> "molehill" any more.
>.............Chris Durden
>
>
>At 08:53 AM 2/11/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>>I actually like the idea of "licenses". Here are my pros and cons. There
>>are two basic cons. One is simply that allowing government to have power
>>(control) will inevitably mean more control which will become too narrow
>>and restrictive. The second is simply that allowing government to have
>>power (control) will ditto. (By the way, I agree with Cris that this is a
>>miss application of this statute. But what is worse is if it is allowed to
>>stand it will stick.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Ron



 
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