Dodo habitat - Re: Nominee for best post

[Chris J. Durden]

I agree with Mark that John Shuey's presentation of the evidence or lack of
evidence for extinction by collecting is an excellent post.
    There is a truly disturbing idea behind this. I think of it as a
variant of the "Paradox of the Elgin Marbles". In that type case a cultured
man of wealth and power removed some of the better priceless artifacts of
our human heritage, brought them inside and made them available to public
view in a more stable setting. The artifacts he left behind in situ were
neglected and deteriorated under conditions of increasing acid rain to a
shadow of their former glory. Enter politics and we have the country of
origin attempting a legal repatriation of their cultural patrimony.
    This thinking has been carried to intellectually harmful extremes in
the cultural objects repatriation legislation of a large number of
countries. We have scenarios like the efforts to reclaim and re-bury the
remains of "Kennewick Man" as an ancestral native tribal person thus
preventing any efforts through future technology to determine just how the
individual was related to the surviving tribal peoples.
    This thinking has been stretched by some governments to consider
wildlife, including both fauna and flora and now all genetic material as
cultural or even national patrimony and regulate all this natural resource
found within their territory. The results are restrictions that limit or
prohibit the study of these organisms and fuel political efforts to obtain
the repatriation of samples now kept in other countries. Do we really want
all the types documenting the discovery and description of new species to
return to their countries of origin? Should the feathered cape of Montezuma
be returned to Mexico from Vienna? Should the flag that fell with the Alamo
be returned to Texas from Mexico? Should the New Jersey specimens of
Mitchell's Satyr be rounded up and returned to New Jersey?
    Perhaps the collector of the long series of Mitchell's Satyr, now
deposited for open scientific access in the American Museum of Natural
History, was aware  of the decline of their habitat and the hopeless
prospects of these populations for the future. He (I assume it was BZ) was
obviously not "of the stamp collector mentality" as he saved not just the
perfect specimens but also the "rags" for future study.
    How many among us have engaged in salvage collecting of a doomed
population in order to preserve some dead evidence of a former population
for future research. How many have engaged in "scorched earth" collecting
to snatch a sample of a cherished natural community  from in front of the
bulldozers?
    We should by all means do our very best to obtain the setting aside of
reserves for the preservation of living communities of wildlife. However
when the economic and political pressures of our world commitment to
"growth" condemn these pocket relicts of primordial wilderness we should at
least salvage their remains and save the shells of the once living for
future study. Having seen what remains of the Dodo in the Oxford Museum I
am sorry we have not done a better job of sampling our vanishing biota.
..................Chris Durden
 
At 05:28 PM 1/11/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>Speaking of quality and non-quality posts (were we?), here is my nomination
>for best post of Y2K.  This one was from John Shuey and represents
>everything that is good in LEPS-L. It provides good evidence of the true
>benefit from open dialogue between all participants - even in posts that are
>longer than a paragraph.  IMO, posts like these should be required reading.
>
>Sorry for all the indentations.  Try to read around them, and enjoy.
>
>Mark Walker
>enjoying the rain in Oceanside, CA
 
 
 
 
 ------------------------------------------------------------
 
   For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:
 
   http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl