[leps-talk] Miami Blues ...

[Ron Gatrelle]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Anne Kilmer" <viceroy at BellSouth.net>
Subject: [leps-talk] Miami Blues ...


> Here is a report on the Miami Blue program that came to me via the NABA
> channel ... I share it with some sadness, as I had hoped that, instead
> of getting the butterfly listed, we would re-establish it in its old
> stamping grounds.
> Anne Kilmer


What is _wrong_ with the below listing is that it is fraudulent.  It is so
because the Bahai Honda population has been identified by more than one
lepidopterist as *C. thomasi bahamensis*.  (Dr. Lee Miller, for example,
stated it looked like *bahamensis* to him in a comment at the recent
Southern Leps. / ATL meeting - and he is a true expert on Caribbean blues).
If so, it is a taxon that only recently blew into the site and is thus a
transient entity that may or may not stick around.  Some of the below
speakers certainly had "motive" (personal financial benefit? ) from seeing
the critter listed.  No one with vested interests or known agendas should
ever be allowed to "testify" is legal situations of any kind where the
decision would be based on their "testimony" as unbiased and expert.

In this case, this would apply to developers, mosquito controllers, naba
(enviro activists), and the team _seeking payment_ for restoration of the
population.  If this is a real and valid situation, then there would be
various unbiased and disjunct-from-the-situation experts that could have
been called in (upon) to provide pragmatic opinion.  I bet Lee Miller's
statement sure wasn't brought up.  In fact, I will wager that there was
never any indication at all that there might even remotely be some question
to the true taxonomic identity of this taxon.

I realize that in sending this post, I am doing myself no favors.  I thus
do this because I am a conservationist who believes there is much
environmental fraud about in this world and if it is not confronted, it
will in the end only cause a backlash to legitimate conservation projects
and funding.  The circles that make these decisions are way to small and
tight with each other.

Ron Gatrelle

PS  The great irony in this to me is that I believe the real Miami Blue
_is_ in need of help.  I believe its last sightings were just a few years
ago on Key Largo at the Schaus area independantly by the Coopers and
Gillmore.  It would be sad indeed if the real drowning taxon got no life
preserver but the pretender did.   I believe completely that in 50 years
what I just stated in this PS will be known among scientists as the truth.
Thus, my gripe is not so much with "listing" but with what has been listed
and will thus get _all_ the attention (and money).   So we are about to
have thousands of blues released all over the keys and south FL that may be
an exotic and may compete with and kill of some indigenous taxa -- who
knows?  No one knows what will happen.  Perhaps the USF&W or USDA should
step in and prohibit the release of a potential exotic throughout south
Florida.


>
> Dear Miami Blue aficionados,
>
> This is a brief report on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation
> Commission meeting at Hawk's Cay Resort on Duck Key, Florida,  November
> 19, 2003. There is good news...The Miami Blue butterfly was on the
> commission's agenda today and in a unanimous vote, received a permanent
> endangered status, an up-grade from its former emergency endangered
> status. The Management Plan for the Miami Blue butterfly passed
> unanimously as well.
>
> Jaret Daniels, PhD and Akers Pence, both from the University of Florida,
> supplied an articulate blend of science and logic that helped carry the
> day. On this important day, perhaps the most important one in the
> existence of this diminutive butterfly, Dennis Olle spoke for the Miami
> Blue chapter of the North American Butterfly Association and emphasized
> this "namesake" butterfly's rareness and how its loss would be more than
> just a loss to science. In his presentation Dennis gave plugs to the
> Miami Blue chapter and  NABA. One speaker however (name unknown), in
> reference to spraying for mosquitoes, saw the issue as man vs. butterfly.
>
> Clean lenses and quick focusing,
> David Lysinger



 
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