Museum Collection + "I guess I am a war crinimal!"

Fri Feb 8 14:12:48 EST 2002

Bob and others,

The way I deal with my students and my family who wish to avoid killing
insects requires awareness and compassion, the Buddhist virtues, rather
than self-righteousness and intolerance, the customary ones.

We try to find an area of agreement.
1) We usually agree that killing living things is regrettable.
2) We surely agree that to live at all, we will use resources and compete
for resources, making the death of some creatures inevitable.
3) We sometimes agree again that all else being equal, the smallest
footprint is the best (Mine are size 12, so I am guilty up front).
4) We have a little more trouble agreeing that learning about the natural
world justifies the deaths of these, flowers, bees, butterflies or frogs.
5) But we do admit that the knowledge gained is worthwhile, and that there
is much more extensive devastation of life during agriculture, suburban
development and driving.
6) And we can certainly agree that past human actions, including predation
to extinction, overuse of pesticides, and even rather brutal scientific
research practices were wrong and needed to change. Yes this is value
judgement, but I thought values were good.
7) We hopefully agree that the issue is too complicated to simply say,
since I am the scientist/teacher and you are a sentimental
environmentalist that you should have no say. Or that since you have a
greater reverence for life than I, that I should not be permitted to
pursue an understanding of the natural world in a conscientiously
low-impact way.

This does not convince everyone ( I have a stictly vegetarian daughter who
loves to mark-recapture and measure wings, but who cannot bear the killing
jar. I have students who believe that if the world doesn't get out of
their way, tough luck to the world). But everyone seems convinced that I
take their feelings seriously and that I can be trusted to behave
responsibly towards things they care about. People do not trust energy
companies, developers, the cruder sorts of deer hunters and the colder
sorts of scientists, because of past experience. If you tell me that
killing animals is trivial and that I am a fool for thinking otherwise,
why should I trust you with the natural world that legally is just as much
mine as yours.

Collectors would do well to admit that collecting is a necessary evil. It
may be a small evil, and it may be very necessary. But when the average
person hears us going into a rant about our rights to kill and the
sentimentality of people who prefer to kill less, the average person has
good reason to distrust us. Collectors do not admit the evil, because each
one of us wants to be seen as perfect flawless beings in a damaged world
that is not our fault at all. The sharper the conflict between our own
need to be thought perfect and the very different evaluation of others,
the higher we build the wall of stubborn machismo. And the less we are
trusted with creatures that may belong to the state or may belong to God
or may belong to themselves.

In short: acknowledge the troubling nature of what we do, insist that
knowledge is worth having, and promise to get it as gracefully as we can.

Patrick Foley
patfoley at csus.edu

"Bob Parcelles,Jr." wrote:

> Greetings:
>
> This is a cross-post from PARC list and might denonstrate that
> entomologists, particularly lepidopterists, are not the only ones
> with this problem. please help him out directly. Critical OR NEGATIVE
> comments SHOULD NOT be sent TO HIM! He did not post to either of
> these 2 groups. help him if you can. Use him for discussion on these
> 2 lists.
>
> I fear that in our zealousness to recruit people to become
> environmentalists we are more and more getting people wh0 are anti
> all consumptive uses of living or otherwise resources on this planet.
> The need for scientists (true amateur as well as pro) to collect is
> so obvious it defies imagination for it to be such a hot topic!
>
> Bob Parcelles, Jr.
> Having legally collected birds, mammals, fish, herps and all types of
> invertebrates for the purpose of science and environmental education.
> I also have have "collected" over 125,ooo photographic images with
> over 20,000 having been published.
>
> I guess I am a war crinimal!
> **********************************************************************
> Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 23:21:15 -0600
>
> Reply-to: Malcolm McCallum <mmccallu at MAIL.ASTATE.EDU>
>
> From: "Malcolm McCallum" <mmccallu at MAIL.ASTATE.EDU>
> Subject: museum collection
>
> To: PARC at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>
> I am having an ongoing debate with a group of students and faculty in
> my department.  Our university runs a herpetology
> museum of about 26,000 specimens representing the largest
> collection of amphibians and reptiles from ARkansas.  Through
> monitoring and field work animals are deposited fairly
> frequently by us and herpetologists statewide.  Within our
> department there are a number of individuals who argue the
> importance of prudent voucher numbers and sampling targeting
> our herpetology group.  They contend that we over collect.
> THis, however, is far from the truth.  We do collect small
> samples (5-10 animals) from large populations (aparent
> hundreds to thousands of individuals in the immediate area like
> cricket frogs), or 1-2 from small ones (apparent hundreds
> in the immediate area stuff like wood frogs), and do not
> collect from populations that are very limited (stuff like
> hellbenders, collard lizards, alligator snapping turtles that
> have limited ranges and populations as low as 50 in
> places).  The parties argue that these collections are useless,
> contending that long range data that could be gathered from
> the specimens does not show cause-effect and is therefore
> conjecture and unneeded.
> WHile they speak of prudent sampling, they are actually
> against any type of collecting.. as is apparent by their
> arguments (most of which have be left out for brevity).  I think
> the fact that they work on animals such as raptors and rare
> birds has put blinders on them.
>
> So my question is... How do I argue this point further.  I
> am getting sincerely tired of having to defend the
> methodologies and standards we use.  In fact, when we do kill we
> put them to sleep with sodium pent first!  I am getting very
> frustrated with the continual arguments that are thrown my
> way by people who refuse to take off their blinders and
> examine the situation as it really stands.  I think comparing
> a hawk population to a population of salamanders is no
> fairer than standardizing mosquito collections in the swamp
> based on those for salamanders.  They are apples and oranges.
> Any comments, pro or con would be appreciated.
>
> Malcolm McCallum
> P.O. Box 847
> Environmental Sciences Ph.D. Program
> State University, AR  72467
> 1-870-972-3177
> mmccallu at astate.edu
> "If a cluttered desk signs a cluttered mind, Of
>   what, then, is an empty desk a sign? -Albert Einstein."
>
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> =====
> Bob Parcelles, Jr
> Pinellas Park, FL
> RJP Associates, C2M-BWPTi
> rjparcelles at yahoo.com
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/naturepotpourri
> "Change your thoughts and you change your world."
> - Norman Vincent Peale
>
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