What is a lepidopterist?

[Ron Gatrelle]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Bailey" <cmbb at sk.sympatico.ca>
Subject: Re: What is a lepidopterist?


snip
> Hi there,
> The rub in butterflying will be who will have the right in the future to
> collect specimens.
>
> Martin Bailey,

Hi -- I am glad people have not gone off the deep end with my examples of
what is reality is some areas and with some people at the lunitic fringe of
life.   That is to say,  have not taken my remarks personally or as some
blanket inditement.

Martin has great insight here with this sentence.   For those who collect
their preception is that events and laws are moving quickly to make their
action 100%illegal.  A world where collecting would be illegal on a vacant
lot but buldozing the lot and paving it fine.  This preception is being
induced by something.

Rudy mentioned about Lep Soc missing their window of opportunity (yes, I
did bring that up originally).   But here is another point.  When NABA
first started no one among the "lepidopterists" thought anything much about
their name.  In fact most of its first members were all Lep. Soc. members
too.  One could say NABA land was first populated by lepidopterists.  Jeff
Glassberg himself is _still_ a lepidopterist as he is a 2002 member of the
Lepidopterists' Society.   And I am surely a butterflier.  I see no
difference in these terms - and I think this is true for most of the old
schoolers.

To me it seems the natural evolution of this would have been for folks in
today's mostly watcher orgs. and groups to call themselves amateur
lepidopterists or avocational lepsters (per Alex).   Thus, the question
remains:  where along the way did the term lepidopterist become one that
any number of people do _not_ want applied to them as they see it in a
distasteful light?  Representing something they never want to be known as.

Rudy points out well the state of how things are today relative to how
people are getting involved and with what groups. It is thus, totally
understandable why todays lepsters do not call or see themselves as
leidopterists.  But that has not been my point in this thread.  The
original thought centers around the words _what is_ not the word
lepidopterist.   What is, is a perception.  As Clinton said, that depends
on what is, is.    My take has been in looking from the past.  These are
both true perspectives and somewhat mutually exclusive.

I will say this, I am no longer excited about getting the next issue of the
Lep. Soc. Journal.  It has been that way with me for several years.  To me
it is nothing of what it used to be.  It seems to now be dominated by
highly technical papers filled with charts, graphs, chemical analyses,  and
studies that even the person writing it was glad to get finished with.
Lep. Soc was once young and a lot of fun.  It is trying hard to recover
esp. with its Newsletter - which most current members are probably more
interested in than its Journal.

I would have joined in with the "butterflier" groups long ago had I not
been made to feel like an outsider who was not welcome because of what I
stood for or "symbolized".  Granted, had I been in Arizona or south Florida
or other places I would have seen the sunny side of this apple and not its
bad spot.   And yes, it is to my view just small a spot on the whole.  But
it is there, and it is rottenness.  When I have an apple like that I cut
out that spot to preserve the whole.

There are bad, lawbreaking collectors.  It is up to the other collectors to
deal with these spots in their midst.  We collectors can spot them better
because we are around them when the brag of how they got in some place they
should not have been.  We should not pamper them by smiling and nodding --
we should turn them out of our midst and turn them in.   Likewise, there
are people among the watchers who are divisive and counterproductive due to
their political and social agendas.  It is wrong to pamper them by
forbidding the whole group to tolerate their rottenness by not even
allowing the word voucher to be mentioned at a meeting, or net, ID,
releasing on a field trip.   There are problem people equally on both
"sides".

Ron

PS   Re the Lep. Soc.  I am no longer excited about getting the next issue
of the Lep. Soc. Journal.  It has been that way with me for several years.
To me it is nothing of what it used to be.  It seems to now be dominated by
highly technical papers filled with charts, graphs, chemical analyses,  and
studies that even the person writing it was glad to get finished with.
Lep. Soc was once young and a lot of fun.  It is trying hard to recover
esp. with its Newsletter - which most current members are probably more
interested in than its Journal. And the journal has moved to a new big TTR
type format ( had to say that :-) and has more interesting-to-the-non-PhD
articles in it.

I think the best way to bring more life into Lep Soc and harmony to all
butterfliers is for the 3000 naba members who are not Lep. Soc members to
join Lep.Soc. too and inject their freshness into the old gal.  They we
would all be what we should be - butterflying (and mothing) lepidopterists.





 
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