MASS LEP LEADERS

[Ron Gatrelle]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Grkovich, Alex" <agrkovich at tmpeng.com>

snips

> 1. I am an avocational and scientifically minded Lepidopterist, not
merely a
> "butterfly collector".
> 2. Brian, I really DON'T need your directions, I can find and have found
all
> the butterflies (including Harvesters) that I need on my own.
>
> Alex Grkovich

Two comments.  First, it seems to me that there is a basic attitude among
watchers that they need to keep location info close to the vest to keep
collectors from knowing where stuff is.  Now, part of my reaction to this
is surely based on my decades of already knowing where stuff is at, but I
get the impression that many of the watchers honestly think that no one
knows about where anything occurs unless they find it first.   There is
this secret cloak and dagger approach to locations.  The unreasonableness
of this paranoia is that collectors have been in every area and region for
centuries and thus already know about the "locations".   Most of the places
the watchers go were likely first pointed out to them by some old
collector.  For example, it's the collectors who put watchers onto
utilities line cuts as great places to look for leps - and plants.  I want
to stop at every power line cut I see.

The second comment is that yes,  newer collectors do "watch" the watchers
on line info and do go to the "disclosed" (pinpointed) spots to collect.
That is what happens in a free country with legal activities.   The insects
are not the property of one segment of society and their particular fetish.
Those who feel that way are dangerous people.  The recent ecoterrorist
arson attack on Forest Service property clearly reminds us that there are
still plenty of crazy people in the environmental movement.  Don't be
surprised Alex if the next time you visit this spot to find your tires slit
when you return to your vehicle - or bait or light traps smashed.

Whenever I or any of us post messages like this it is usually followed by
an out cry of how we are misjudging or picking on "watchers".  Nothing
could be further from the truth.  We are well aware that the great majority
of watchers are not whackos.  (The majority are fine folk we collectors
count among our personal friends - and enjoy being in the field with.)
The reaction and action of watchers should not be directed at us collectors
/ traditional lepidopterists who are continual victims of vilification, it
needs to be directed at cleaning your own house and bringing into control
(the mainstream), or disassociation with, the anti-net, anti-collector,
know-it-all know nothings in your midst that are causing _all_ the
controversy and disharmony.

Alex has permits from _most_ of the New England states to conducts research
in and for those states. He is what we have come to know as a "scientific
collector".  He has access to many areas that are not open to "regular"
collectors because of the research he is conducting on _behalf_ of those
state agencies and as a TILS research staff member.  Yet, he has people
opposing and ridiculing him as if he were some poacher.

Ron Gatrelle






 
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