FW: killing butterflies for fun???

[jh]

And to add to that thought.... 

Anne wrote - 
however, John, your grand statement that "we don't live in a society 
where we need to collect butterflies and moths" is based on a sad lack 
of scientific curiosity. If you are subscribed to leps-talk, you see 
continual chatter about various cryptic species of butterflies ... some 
that you have been looking at every day, and apparently misidentifying.

Anne - 

I read this again to make sure I was responding to directly to what you
wrote 
in your post, and to say I have a sad lack of scientific curiosity based on
my 
statement that society won't end without collecting butterflies, is greatly
inaccurate.  
There are many natural things, lepidotera included, that I am curious about
to the 
verge of [happy] obsession.  But I am not under the illusion that my life in
society
would come to an end should the collection of butterflies cease!  Sorry.

You don't know me too well ;^) - And I am surprised to read this kind of
statement
from you, since yours are usually more thoroughly thought out.

And a pleasure to read.  

Almost poetic at times, and with a point.

However...,

You are attempting to sell me on the importance of collecting, but are in
effect
preaching to the choir.  Collecting is important if you want to protect
a particular species of lep, or a population of leps.  I know that!
Collecting is important
if you want to discover new species.  I know that!  Collecting is important
if you want
to distinguish between similar looking species.  I know that!  Collecting is
important if you want to
deal with pest management.  I know that.  I have a book coming out this fall
on moths
of the northeast where I talk about that ("Discovering Moths" Down East
Books - shameless plug).
I have interviewed collectors from around the country, Canada and Panama and
have lauded their 
contributions.  And the importance of the work they do for those interested
in lepidoptera, agriculture, 
the understanding of biology in general, etc.

But again, would society end if we were not able to sort out the 
difficult-to-identify butterflies?  I still don't think so.  It wouldn't be
as good of a society,
but we would still go on. And, again-again, so would the butterflies - not
all of them, but 
probably enough of them.

 If you disagree with that, than so be it.  We probably
agree on far more than you think, since you know less about me that I do you
(you
post more than I do).  

And now look what has happened!  AHHHH!  I have been forced to make an
argument for collecting!
I've tried to avoid getting into that.  It's not what this was about!  It
was about comparing accidents to
on-purposes!

But as I said earlier, I should have known better..  Touchy topic.

Will there now be a slew of anti-collecting posts hitting me from the other
side?

John

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
John Himmelman
Killingworth, CT
jhimmel at mindspring.com
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

 Visit my websites at:
  www.johnhimmelman.com
  www.connecticutmoths.com
  www.ctamphibians.com 
____________________________   

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-leps-l at lists.yale.edu [mailto:owner-leps-l at lists.yale.edu]On
Behalf Of jh
Sent: Saturday, July 06, 2002 3:31 PM
To: LEPS-L at lists.yale.edu; Anne Kilmer
Subject: RE: killing butterflies for fun???


Anne - You may disagree with me, but if no one collected, or passively
watched, butterflies and moths, society would not end.  That is what I
meant.  Granted, it would be far less interesting, but the butterflies and
moths would go on, as would society.

However, if people were told that they could not drive cars to work lest
they run over butterflies and moths, well, I think that would have a far
greater impact on the way we live.

Perhaps after the initial catastrophe, it may be even better.

<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
John Himmelman
Killingworth, CT
jhimmel at mindspring.com
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>

 Visit my websites at:
  www.johnhimmelman.com
  www.connecticutmoths.com
  www.ctamphibians.com
____________________________

-----Original Message-----
From: Anne Kilmer [mailto:viceroy at GATE.NET]
Sent: Saturday, July 06, 2002 2:26 PM
To: jhimmel at mindspring.com
Cc: leps-l at lists.yale.edu; Ron Gatrelle
Subject: Re: killing butterflies for fun???


jh wrote:

> This message and several others that were posted had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to
> do with what I wrote - and this is what happens every time this topic
> arises.  So many on both sides are so eager to score points that these
posts
> become conversations among deaf people.  Instead of reading and responding
> to what was written, the respondants' back gets up as he or she reads a
> perceived attack on their hobby/vocation and launches into a defensive
> diatribe.
>
> My whole focus was on the use of one particular argument - comparing
> actively collecting to accidentally hitting leps with cars. I'm sorry, but
> they cannot be compared.  We live in a society where we need to drive to
get
> to our jobs.  We don't live in a society where we need to collect
> butterflies and moths.  There are those (and again, I'm not one of them -
I
> feel like I have to say this in order to keep this on topic) who are
> bothered that some people collect butterflies and moths for a hobby.  They
> are bothered that some people go out of their way to do so.  Asking those
> people to give up driving is unrealistic.  [So is asking them to give up
> eating meat - but I may be poking a hornet's nest with that one ;^) ]
>

snip


> John Himmelman
>


One can only assume that Paul was bored ... he rousted ancient arguments
on three lists at once. Bless his heart.

yes, the argument is stupid, boring, banal, irrelevant.

however, John, your grand statement that "we don't live in a society
where we need to collect butterflies and moths" is based on a sad lack
of scientific curiosity. If you are subscribed to leps-talk, you see
continual chatter about various cryptic species of butterflies ... some
that you have been looking at every day, and apparently misidentifying.

Assuming it's important to know about these cryptic species, since they
make changes that reflect and reverberate with our changing weather
systems, it is also important to have scads of drawers of dead bugs, to
which new methods of inquiry can be applied as they are developed.
Ron Gatrelle, for instance, reports on a new Tiger Swallowtail which has
been mistakenly identified as another species, and you hear the clanging
and swishing of drawers all over the world, as scientists examine their
specimens to find out which in fact they have, change labels where
necessary, whisk off a scrap of tarsus for DNA sampling ... oh, it's
breathtaking, and without the lepidopterists we'd be dead in the water.

It suddenly came to folks' attention, just a little while ago, that the
people who had been reporting Checkered Skippers in the Atlanta area (I
may have this wrong, but it's close enough for government work) have
indeed been looking at Tropical Checkered Skippers. What the hell
happened, we all wonder, and what else has been going on that we don't
know about. And again you hear those drawers swishing.

Gosh, John, do you think that looking at a lot of photographs would
help? Not at all; you have to dissect the little guys to find out which
bug you're looking at. So what happened to all the Checkered Skippers
that used to be there, and why do we now have Tropical Checkered
Skippers, and when did the change take place, and what else is happening
that we don't know about? And, most of all, how does this affect what
you pay for your Post Toasties?

The fellow driving the car (and polluting the planet, as well as hitting
a lot of butterflies) has a great deal to do with why we now have
warm-country bugs showing up in cold-country places, and indeed he would
do well to consider working closer to home, tele-commuting, and in
general leaving smaller, shallower hoofprints on our plundered planet.
The fellow dashing about with the butterfly net, spreading ruin and
scattering ban, splashing and paddling with hooves of a goat, in
Browning's immortal words (Elizabeth Barrett, not Robert) may be doing a
tiny amount of one-on-one mayhem, which he pays for in the form of
information.
In the long run, that's good for the bugs.
He got there in a car, and he's going home in a car, and he'll kill
plenty of bugs in each direction, and so what. They're just bugs. God'll
make more, if we treat the planet right.

There is no moral highground here, and any minute now we'll all be in
the soup.

It is time, in fact, for us all to hang together, in the full and
certain knowledge that otherwise we all hang separately.

Anybody been down to the Keys recently? Them bugs enjoying the rain?

Anne Kilmer
Mayo, Ireland




 
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