Glassberg is quite correct.

[Grkovich, Alex]

This is what I wrote someone privately a moment ago: That these people must
be discredited by the truth and stopped, for all of our sake. What a dull
and dead country and world we would live in if collecting and even
"watching" of butterflies was totally banned. What would do with ourselves,
stay indoors? Never be permitted to go outside and go into the "woods"? This
country would then become a concentration camp full of sterilized human
beings. And the editorial by Heppner points out that there are laws already
on the books that would ban even "butterfly watching"  (i.e. "disturbing the
activities of the endangered species") if taken to full measure.

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	Mike Soukup [SMTP:mikayak3 at home.net]
> Sent:	Thursday, January 10, 2002 10:43 AM
> To:	Neil at NWJONES.DEMON.CO.UK
> Cc:	leps-l at lists.yale.edu
> Subject:	Re: Glassberg is quite correct.
> 
> Can't help myself this time.....
> 
> To compare a Hymenopteran - that uses chemical signals, vision in the
> non-human
> spectra and other methods for finding it's prey and a "human with a net"
> is
> ludicrous.    Second, you only state that "they have effects on the
> populations" -
> well - duh!  What predator doesn't.    Then, you start on Snail.  Sorry,
> wrong
> Phyllum.  Try again.
> And, even if the wasp did "make them extinct", it was a wasp that did it -
> not a
> man.  So, you either want man to be part of nature (equating him with the
> wasp) -
> in which case, man causing an extermination is no more evil than any other
> "natural" predator causing the extermination, or, you want man to be
> "separate
> from nature" - in which case comparing him to a wasp or a snail is not
> valid.  You
> can't, logically, have it both ways.  Period.
> 
> And, not being organized or knowledgable enough to have the details - but
> I know
> there was a study done "out west" where a localized checkerspot colony was
> "collected" as thouroughly as humany possible (eggs, larve, pupae,
> adults).  This
> practice had no effect on the successive populations.  So, I would say
> there is
> MUCH more evidence supporting the lack of exctinction by collecting - than
> there
> is evidence supporting extinction thru collecting.
> 
> Just my one cents worth.
> 
> BTW - I like much of the off-color, off-subject posts.  The freezer's
> empty, the
> moths mounted, labelled and in the drawers.  And, hell, I'm cold and
> ornery -
> gotta keep myself awake somehow!!!
> 
> Neil Jones wrote:
> 
> > Dr Glassberg is quite correct to assert that _one_of_the__threats
> > to the Miami Blue is collecting.
> >
> > THe Miami Herald article says.
> >
> > "A chance discovery of a single colony of the bright blue butterfly
> > -- about 30 to 50 insects -- on state land in the Middle Keys prompted
> >  the association to file a petition in June 2000 for protection of the
> >  Miami Blue as an endangered species."
> >
> > Asswuming this is correct we have a single small and therefore
> vulnerable
> > population.
> >
> > The Article goes on to say.
> > "For Glassberg, every day that ticks by increases his fear that the
> > butterfly will be gone forever.
> > ``It's hard to imagine more of an emergency situation,'' he said.
> > ``The only known colony in the U.S. is this small place in the Keys,
> >  faced with all sorts of possible threats: hurricanes, butterfly
> >  collectors, mosquito spraying. Any of those could wipe the Miami
> > Blue out.'' "
> >
> > Now for the logic.
> >
> > It has been asserted, that no insect has ever been extirpated
> > by human beings removing individuals from a population. It has also been
> > asserted that since this is the case it would be unreasonable to prevent
> > human beings from doing this where the insect species is in danger of
> > extinction. In order to invalidate the second statement it is necessary
> > to examine the question of whether the first statement can be
> > disproved as it follows logially from the first.
> >
> >  Gathering individuals from a population could be regarded as predation
> > by one species on another. In this case the predator being Homo sapiens.
> > It is therefore necessary to examine whether a predator can affect the
> > population of a species.
> >
> > There are numerous examples of this. For example it is well documented
> > that the hymenopteran parasitoid Cotesia bignelii has an effect on the
> > population levels of Eurodryas aurinia. There is even an example of
> > an invertebrate predator foreign to an ecosystem exterminating entire
> species.
> > This has happened with several species of Partula snails on Pacific
> islands
> > which were exterminated by a foreign predatory snail.
> >
> > Invertebrates do have a greater potential for population growth and
> recovery
> > than mammals or birds but this does not prove that they are necessarily
> more
> > resistant to predation. Over the long term each pair of organisms will
> > produce, on average, one pair of offspring during its life time.
> > Insects have just as many predators as other animals. Increasing the
> predation
> > will put stress on the population and could, where the population is
> small,
> > cause an extinction.
> >
> >  I myself have observed several populations of insects where due to the
> > nature of the lifecycle it would be easy to remove all the individuals.
> I have
> > not done so because it would be unethical.
> >
> > There is of course the well-known example where a documented extinction
> did
> > occur, the British day-flying moth the New Forest Burnet, Zygaena viciae
> > ytenensis.
> >
> > --
> > Neil Jones- Neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk http://www.nwjones.demon.co.uk/
> > "At some point I had to stand up and be counted. Who speaks for the
> > butterflies?" Andrew Lees - The quotation on his memorial at Crymlyn Bog
> > National Nature Reserve
> >
> >
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