Charming conversions, roadkill story and entomology text

Patrick Foley patfoley at csus.edu
Wed Jul 3 20:39:18 EDT 2002


Paul and all,

I couldn't help being charmed by Paul's recent conversion to the Greens. Was
this on the road to Damascus?

And I have to tell my favorite butterfly roadkill story.

About 4 years ago my family was driving north from a high Sierra Nevada
backpacking trip. My 5-year old boy Colin (yes we abuse small children with 6
mile-a-day hikes in my family) has been a fierce defender of his right to
whine, argue and fuss ever since he got a larynx, and as we drove up I395
looking for some rocks with pictoglyphs, my wife lost all patience with him. We
stopped the K5 Blazer (the best field vehicle I ever knew, now defunct so don't
get into the gas mileage, Paul - At 6'8" I do not fit into a Metro or a Ranger)
in the middle of sagebrush desert, climbed out and stood on the dirt while
Janet threatened human sacrifice and worse punishments to my son who paid no
attention to her whatsoever.

As Janet stood steaming in front of the K-5 which was steaming on its own,
Colin said "Buckeye". "What are you talking about?" Janet asked in her best
about-to-go-to-war voice. "Buckeye" Colin repeated, and we looked with him at
the K-5's grill where a dead Buckeye (Junonia coenia) had ended its short life.
After a moment of stunned reflection, the four of us (not the Buckeye but my
daughter Yla) got back into the vehicle, and nobody yelled at anybody for some
hours. A little knowledge can cover a multitude of sins, at least if the sinner
is your kid.

Patrick
patfoley at csus.edu

Ps. Thanks for the ent text advice to all. At the moment, I am inclined to use
Daly et al. 2nd ed which is much improved over the first edition, has lost Paul
Ehrlich as an author (I just mention this for trolling purposes) and appears
more readable than Borror et al and Gullan and Cranston. I will surely also use
Borror and White and Powell's INsects of California.

Paul Cherubini wrote:

> John Himmelman wrote:
>
> > is it really necessary to point out that there is a difference
> > in most people's minds between unavoidable
> > collisions with insects whilst driving and actively collecting?
>
> Unavoidable?  I find these anti-collector, anti-butterfly release activists
> are routinely driving around in big gas guzzling,
> 2 & 1/2 ton Vans, Sport-utes on their way to work or their
> acitivist meetings, slaughtering orders of magnitude more
> insects than if they were driving 3 or 4 cylinder compact cars
> mini-trucks or compact station wagons.
>
> 20 - 30 years ago conservationists had fairly modest paying government
> jobs and drove around in little 4 cylinder imports.  Now after voting
> themselves 10-15% annual pay raises they can afford and are buying
> big Vans and Sport-utes and see nothing wrong with attaching
> "restore the environment" or "no drilling oil in ANWR" bumper stickers
> to their big vehicles.  Like just few days ago I saw this
> "restore Hetch Hetchy" (a valley in Yosemite) bumber sticker on a
> 14 miles per gallon Nissan Pathfinder sports-ute:
> http://membersites.nwbombers.com/dalkena/hetch.jpg
>
> So yeah I think lep collectors and butterfly breeders / releasers such
> as myself that drive around unfashionably small 4 cylinder vehicles
> or Mark Walker who drives a 3 cylinder Geo Metro might justifiably
> be miffed at the hypocrisy of the NABA style do-gooders who try and
> make a big deal of the impact our activities have on wild
> butterfly populations.
>
> Paul Cherubini
>
>
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