Fw: You have damaged bird research by your butterfly article.]

[Hank Brodkin]

Barb requested that I forward this to lists that she does not belong to.
If any moderators/owners feels that we should take these discussions 
private - please say so!  It seems to me that some groups prohibit this 
subject being discussed - but I forget which.

Hank Brodkin

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Barb Beck" <barb at birdnut.obtuse.com>
To: <hbrodkin at cox.net>
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 2:04 PM
Subject: [Fwd: You have damaged bird research by your butterfly article.]


> Hi,
> Enjoyed your post to SWLeps which got forwarded up here to our lists.
>
> My issue to Birding  (I am a long time birder) has not yet arrived but 
> unfortunately I mentioned that to somebody and I now have 28 electronic 
> copies and more are coming in each day.  For sure I am no longer going to 
> be a member when my membership expires.
> Anyway here is my bitch to them.
>
> Please encourage people in your area if they do not feel that 
> lepidopterists are horrid antisocial people tainted by the stigma of a net 
> to write ABA.  This article also has huge ramifications for bird research. 
> If there is anything in it that you want to forward to your list please 
> do. I am not a member of sw leps.
>
> Barb
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: You have damaged bird research by your butterfly article.
> Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 20:55:15 -0700
> From: Barb Beck <barb at birdnut.obtuse.com>
> To: rdowning at aba.org
> CC: tedfloyd at ABA.ORG, srunnels at aba.org, cwallace at aba.org, bex at aba.org, 
> earnesen at aba.org, srunnels at aba.org, lfujimoto at aba.org, lrhodes at aba.org, 
> member at aba.org, bpatrick at aba.org, winging at aba.org, onele at aba.org, 
> tlpyle at willapabay.org, harrypav at hotmail.com, agrkovich at tmpeng.com, 
> kennk at ix.netcom.com, Norbert Kondla <colias at shaw.ca>, Felix Sperling 
> <Felix.Sperling at ualberta.ca>, geoffrey.holroyd at ec.gc.ca
>
>
>
> Hello
>
> I cannot believe how the American Birding Association which I have 
> supported for years printed that article by Jeff Glassberg in their 
> Birding Magazine.  I have saved all of my old editions of the mag and use 
> them in my class.  I have stocked much of my library and recording 
> collection  from your ABA sales.  However,  I am not renewing my 
> membership.  You have done immense damage both to birds and to butterflies 
> by promoting this guy, his ego and  anti-science ideas and the list of 
> completely false statements your magazine.
>
> The article contains so many falsehoods I hardly know where to start but I 
> will leave that for later in this message. Since he claims that we know 
> all we need to know about butterflies certainly he considers research on 
> birds which is one of the most highly studied groups of animals as 
> completely unnecessary. Is the next ABA magazine going to come out with an 
> article declaring that we know all we need to know about birds and that no 
> more bird research is necessary? I have a banding permit..  I believe 
> banding is still very necessary and that the netting and handling  that we 
> put the birds through is worth it for the information that we get about 
> distribution, the state of the current population re age and health as 
> well as the return records.  You are dealing with a person who is not 
> only against netting of butterflies but also of birds.  He and his group 
> at their convention a few years ago were invited to a place to watch 
> butterflies.  His group destroyed the moth traps put out by the person who 
> invited them - this is much like those who do thousands of dollars in 
> damage to banders mist nets.  NABA did not step up to chastise those 
> responsible for the destruction or apologize to the person whose traps had 
> been destroyed immediately.    How do I know his position on netting 
> birds - he told me in a phone conversation.  He was complaining to me (at 
> that time the editor of the Alberta Butterfly counts) about the fact that 
> we used nets.  Our species are far more varied than what he meets in the 
> eastern US and although I identify by far the majority of butterflies by 
> binoculars we use nets for those we cannot because we want our count data 
> to adequately record what is in this province.  A few of us also collect 
> specimens if we encounter a butterfly which has not been adequately 
> described in our literature - more about that later.  He said Audubon 
> would not approve of nets - never did get it clear if he meant the man or 
> the society but I pointed out to him that the man shot his subjects and 
> that the Audubon society sponsors some bird banding programs and also 
> pointed out that I use nets to net birds when banding.  To that he replied 
> that many of them objected to that.
>
> Re the article:.
>
> 1.  Glassberg is certainly NOT the father of identifying butterflies in 
> natural poses that he claims to be nor with using close focus binoculars. 
> The Audubon Society had Bob Pyles field guide which did just that before 
> we even heard of him.  And Bob fully gives credit to the Field guides that 
> came before him from Hollands Butterfly Book at the turn of the century to 
> that commissioned by Peterson from Klotz.  BTW Peterson COLLECTED 
> butterflies with Klotz and Peterson painted many of his birds from dead 
> specimens.  You should read the inrtoduction by RTP to the Klotz book. 
> Watching butterflies with binoculars in the west was well underway before 
> any of Glassbergs publications came out and certainly before his western 
> publication.. Even before close focus binoculars John Acorn was promoting 
> a system devised by Carroll Perkins which involved putting a camera lens 
> on small binoculars to examine insects in close detail close up up here. 
> It is laughable the way Glassberg tries to compare himself to Roger Tory 
> Peterson.
> 2.  Glassberg certainly did not start from scratch in creating field marks 
> as he claims.  Many of the field marks in his book are lifted from past 
> field guides and other authors. It is very difficult to develop field 
> marks even though once you see them they seem quite obvious.  Look at how 
> long birders looked at the Epidonax before they got some down.  Anyway 
> many of his   field marks do not in general work in the west.  They were 
> developed without an appreciation of the wide variability that we have in 
> the west.  His books are of very very limited use here.  Fortunately many 
> of us in this part of the west have excellent local guides such as the 
> Butterflies of Cascadia by Bob Pyle, the Butterflies of BC by Guppy and 
> Shephard and the Butterflies of Alberta by Bird, Kondla, Sperling, Pyle 
> and Hilchie.  .In Canada we also have the Butterflies of Canada by 
> Layberry, Hall and Lafontaine.  For a general guide the Kaufman guide is 
> far superior to the Glassberg books to help you identify a butterfly 
> through binoculars or in a net..
>
> 3.  Glassberg refuses to admit that habitat destruction is the cause of 
> the loss of butterflies.  He wants to discredit the people who collect and 
> study our butterflies to try to figure out what we have.  In the ABA 
> article  he goes even farther picturing the collector as anti social and 
> saying that there is a stigma associated with nets.  That is not the group 
> I know. This is far from the case but guess possibly he is running out of 
> real arguments against those studying butterflies and trying to properly 
> sort out what we have so he has resulted in character assassination and 
> name calling.    He is completely ignorant of the reproductive differences 
> between birds and butterflies.  Certainly birds and mammals can be sent to 
> extinction by killing by man sometimes even with the knowledge that it is 
> the last population.   No North American butterfly has ever been sent to 
> extinction by collectors.  It has been by habitat destruction.  In fact on 
> several occasions people (I think Opler was one) have tried to see just 
> how difficult it would be to extirpate a butterfly by collecting several 
> times a day everything that was flying and removing it from the area.  The 
> attempts failed.  So little is know about the butterflies in some parts of 
> North America that there is a very very great danger that  good species 
> will go extinct without ever being recognized.
>
> 4.  If you want an illustration of how far the lack of concern for habitat 
> goes with this guy pick up the NABA mag from a few years ago in which he 
> details his triumphant "natural" photo of a Mitchel's Satyr.  It is 
> totally disgusting.  Somehow he got permission for himself and about 8 of 
> his buddies to enter a protected area to photograph this butterfly.  These 
> people (all proudly photographed trouncing habitat) spent TWO days 
> stomping foodplants and crushing immature stages of this butterfly before 
> they got their perfect "natural" photo.  How much better the Mitchel's 
> Satyr would have been off if these ignorant fools had merely snagged one 
> with a net, cooled it and taken their photo and left the place with 
> minimal damage..  At least they only tramped the edges of the stream and 
> did not run their SUV through it.  That was my last copy of the NABA 
> magazine - I never did renew my membership.  NABA claims to be promoting 
> butterfly habitat by encouraging people to plant things that attract 
> butterflies in their gardens.  City homes planted with "butterfly gardens" 
> can hardly replace natural habitat which is being lost daily any more than 
> bird houses in city gardens can replace nesting habitat for warblers.
> 5. He claims that butterfly nets discourage people from participating in 
> watching butterflies. The man is rarely confused by facts even when they 
> involve his own organization.   Alberta for a number of years with less 
> than 1 percent of the population in NA held almost10 percent of the NABA 
> counts.  Almost all of our participants use nets although people who do 
> not chose to use a net are also encouraged to attend and are respected. 
> Alberta pulled out of the NABA counts a couple years ago because their set 
> of names derived from their flat earth view of butterfly taxonomy could 
> not adequately represent the species of butterfly we have in the province. 
> We do those counts to get a permanent record of what we have much as 
> Alberta participates very highly in CBCs (Edmonton has CBCs going back to 
> 1908 and holds the record for the most participants in any CBC) BBS routes 
> (with a small population we have a huge number of the routes some over 
> very difficult roads) and with other bird related volunteer projects. By 
> lumping good species whose ranges overlap we loose data on these 
> butterflies.  Even if they had kept the data by subspecies things would be 
> ok but some of our information is lost.    More about the names later.  He 
> thinks that butterfly watching should be an elitist hobby enjoyed only by 
> those who can afford expensive close focus binoculars. He is completely 
> out of touch with kids with real nets (proper nets which have a bag which 
> is at least 1.5 times as long as the diameter of the hoop and not those 
> things sold in dollar stores as butterfly nets) catching butterflies.
> 6.  He claims that  "nets are shotguns" which is as foolish as you can 
> get. Almost all of our netting except for those collecting specimens for 
> scientific study is net and release.  Many of us do not even handle the 
> butterfly.  It is slipped into a cold vial so its wings are not damaged, 
> examined and released without being touched.  Wild rumors were spread on 
> the internet about how nets tore the legs off butterflies.  This greatly 
> concerned my husband and I and we examined all that we netted for a while. 
> In all the  butterflies netted from large Greater Fritillaries to tiny 
> Blues not one lost legs in the net - Is this more NABA propaganda or did 
> they not realize that that some of the butterflies only have 4 large legs 
> (two being just little stubby "brushes")  A study in Illinois has recorded 
> the kill of butterflies by roads and highways. Glassberg on the way to his 
> favorite country butterfly watching sites probably kills many more 
> butterflies with their cars than if a hord of collectors went with him 
> collected all that they saw unless they keep their speed below about 6 mph 
> or only travel at times which are too cold for leps to be flying.  The 
> feet of people trouncing habitat to get the perfect angle to photograph or 
> id a butterfly  with binoculars because they refuse to quickly net it, 
> however, could certainly be considered as "shotguns".
> 7.  He has stated that we know all we need to know about butterflies.  Wow 
> what a statement.  Butterflies have only been studied a very small 
> fraction of the amount that birds have. (Imaging what he thinks of further 
> bird study)  Butterfly study  has often  been done by people who work at 
> it as a hobby because there is very very little funding for butterfly 
> research.  Too illustrate how poorly known some of the butterflies we have 
> in the west are just last year I was involved in getting the specimens for 
> the establishment of what appears to be two new species in the province 
> and possibly a third.  These were during our butterfly counts.  This would 
> be like declaring in the 1850's or earlier that we knew all we needed to 
> know about birds.  Trying to equate the knowledge of birds in the 1940s to 
> the current knowledge we have about butterflies is absolutely outrageous 
> and shows a horrid ignorance about what we know about these creatures.
>
> 8.  Does he want to discredit those studying butterflies and claim that we 
> already know all we need to know about them because the NABA corporation 
> sells a lot of books and it is costly and inconvenient to update book 
> names with new ones or handle the many splits that should be made to those 
> represented in his books? If you control the names and taxonomy so that 
> many species are lumped under one name  the books do not go out of date 
> and you have fewer species to deal with in them..  He has taken many of 
> the lumps that were made decades ago with NO supporting evidence (for 
> example the Leto  Fritillary (Speyeria leto) and the Great Spangled 
> Fritillary we have here (Speyeria cybele pseudocarpenteri) were claimed to 
> be the same species because the ingrade in Alberta but no details given or 
> any evidence whatsoever to back up the statement..  That is amazing 
> because nobody here can find the place where they ingrade even though the 
> area of the ingrade in the sw corner of the province has been covered now 
> quite well in recent years.   But fewer species means that he has less to 
> cover in his books and  can pretend that things are simpler than they 
> really are - again like calling all  Epidonax  flycatchers Least 
> Flycatchers.  He does not want to confuse people with changes but when 
> changes finally must come they are going to be swamped.  Much better to 
> change things as research dictates they should be changed as is done with 
> the AOU.
> 9.  He has driven a wedge particularly in the east between those studying 
> butterflies and those watching which thank goodness does not exist here in 
> this part of the country. He has convinced many good meaning people that 
> the people studying butterflies  are horrid people out to damage butterfly 
> populations.   Here watchers and collectors in general work together. 
> Those who do not want to carry a net for catch and release id are 
> respected, those who carry a net for net and release  are respected and 
> those who collect for study collections are respected.  At least he has 
> not poisoned this part of the continent.  He has upset the eastern 
> lepidpoterists so much that they were even blaming birdwatchers for their 
> problems.  I defended birders completely and vocally on many of these leps 
> lists  but looks like I was wrong - the ABA is now on record as 
> supporting this antiscience outlook too.   I am now ticked off because I 
> must write a letter to the butterfly newsgroups explaining that birders 
> are indeed a part of the problem and that the ABA can now be considered a 
> major contributor.   I should have realized this with the ABA a few years 
> ago when they wrote a such an unfavorable editorial about Ken Kaufmans 
> butterflies guide.  Ken realizes that we have a lot to learn about 
> butterfly taxonomy and respects collectors and what they do as well as 
> encouraging non collectors to appreciated them and clearly states that in 
> his book..  I wrote a letter to the editor of Birding  (and I am sure at 
> least a few others did but no dissenting) view was published.  The Kaufman 
> guide does not have the beautiful butterfly photos that the Glassberg 
> guide contains but comes much closer to giving a picture of the diversity 
> that we have  and is far more useful identifying species in the west.
> 10.  NABA is a corporation..  It is not a club, there are no elected 
> members.  It is totally controlled by Jeff Glassberg.  It is registered as 
> a non-profit company for tax purposes.  That does not mean that it does 
> not pay those it employs.
>
> 11.  He claims to have brought name stability and that is the biggest joke 
> of all.  Furthermore he attempts to give legitimacy to his  "committee" 
> which does not even include one taxonomist by comparing it to  the AOU 
> committee which provides us with lists of bird names.  He started out with 
> the Miller Brown List which contained many  old unjustified lumps.  When 
> Opler came out with a new list it was used to update the eastern list but 
> not used to sort out many of the antiquated taxonomic messes in the west. 
> In the west in particular we have scientifically demonstrated good species 
> which they still lump under one species.  Because the ranges of these 
> species overlap we cannot use only one name to describe them.  Glassberg 
> still claims that they can be sorted out later by range. As stated before 
> it is difficult to confuse the man with facts.   Some of them like our 
> Hesperis and Atlantis Fritillaries have extensive overlap in the ranges. 
> In fact Glassberg even admits these are good species but still does 
> nothing about them so our data turned in for preservation by NABA is 
> lumped and that can never be taken apart. In cases where there is not very 
> very good evidence that things are not separate species it would be 
> acceptable to keep the data by subspecies but that is also not allowed by 
> NABA rules.    His "committee" (most votes are 4-0 with him on name 
> changes) does meet to make changes to names, apparently mostly common 
> names Glassberg does not like such as changing the historic name of the 
> White Admiral to Red-Spotted Admiral. The AOU does not change established 
> accepted common names to things their committee might like better.   There 
> is not even a taxonomist on the NABA committee.  Their list of names is a 
> complete joke not something which should be equated to that put out by the 
> AOU..  The only stability he has brought to namesis the fact that his 
> books all use his names and they do not change to reflect current (and 
> even relatively old) advances in taxonomy. NABA has not done anything 
> constructive with the names but has  merely added to the names babble.
>
> 12. Lets put things in perspective.  Peterson did not have good field 
> marks for separating the Epidonax Flycatchers at first and used a Least 
> Flycatcher to illustrate all.  He DID NOT claim that they were all Least 
> Flycatchers.  If you could not recognize the song it was an Epidonax sp. 
> Birders would not be happy identifying all of the various silent epidonax 
> flycatchers as Least Flycatchers.  But that is essentially what Glassberg 
> promotes for butterflies.  He does not recognize that many of the things 
> which he calls species are species complexes.  For example there is a 
> complex of Celistrina, the Azures.  He wants all of them called Spring 
> Azure and that is how the data is stored for the NABA butterfly counts. 
> Birders doing BBS routes or CBCs would be very upset if they had to list 
> all the epidonax flycatchers they identified as Least Flycatchers.  Heck 
> we are even allowed to identify birds by form or by ssp where appropriate 
> on these surveys.
> 13..  People say that having so many butterflies makes things too 
> complicated for beginners.  How is that any different that for the birds. 
> People can start with a common local list or a very simple local book. 
> Teach beginners that there are Azures and have them lump them under the 
> complex name and not try to call every blue butterfly a Spring Azure. When 
> their eye gets trained to see the differences in the blues they can start 
> identifying the species which make up the complex. I start birders out 
> with silent Epidonax that way.  Explaining that there are many that look a 
> lot alike and later when they become much more familiar with them you can 
> see the subtle differences which make up the field marks to separate the 
> various species when silent..  In no field can you learn everything at 
> once.  But at least what you learn should be correct.  What you identify 
> to put into a permanent database like that maintained by the BBS routes or 
> the CBCs should be identified to the best of your identification skills. 
> If it is just to a complex - so be it an it should be entered as Azure sp. 
> If the actual species can be identified it should be entered that way.  If 
> it is a field identifiable ssp it should be entered as the proper ssp 
> because further knowledge about the bird or butterfly might show that it 
> is indeed a good species.
>
> 14.  Glassbergs field marks plain do not work for a lot of the species in 
> the area of our province where his book is supposed to be applicable..  In 
> the east they are dealing with a much simpler set of butterflies.  They do 
> not have the extensive regional variation we experience here in the west.. 
> Here in Alberta our birds were split east and west by the glaciers and 
> often the species or subspecies meet in this province with confusing 
> results. If you think there are great differences in the songs and calls 
> of the Pacific and Cordillerian Flycatc here guess again. Many are 
> intermediate (even when examining the sonograms) Butterflies like the 
> birds were split east and west but also some butterflies  remained north 
> of the glaciers in ice free areas and some came over the land bridge which 
> formed during the ice age and still other scattered population existed in 
> ice free refugia in the glaciers.  Couple this with the high diversity of 
> habitat and we have a real challenge.  His field marks may work for 
> separating some populatins of similar looking species but cannot even come 
> close for all.  I was amazed how simple it was to butterfly in the east. 
> I butterflied Newfoundland without needing to use a net simply because 
> there were not so many similar looking species.  I know the butterflies of 
> Alberta very well and still cannot identify all of them with binoculars.
> 15. I am truly amazed that left out of the article was how Jeff Glassberg 
> created the world in 3 days and then took off the other 4 to butterfly. as 
> well as comments discrediting the other guy who was supposed to have done 
> it.
>
> If the ABA has not gone completely off the deep end like the NABA an 
> apology is in order for the quality of this article and   possibly an 
> honest intelligent article by Kenn Kaufman about butterflies, enjoying 
> butterflies (with and without a net), butterfly study and the real history 
> of butterfly watching and collecting in North America is in order to 
> attempt to undo some of the falsehoods you spread in this article and if 
> you can get him to write it an article by Bob Pyle a  lepidopterist, 
> author of the first butterfly guide to NA which used natural poses for 
> identification and many other books concerning butterflies including the 
> fantastic guide to the Butterflies of Cascadia.  He has been very active 
> in the Lepidpoterist Society as well as promoting casual butterfly 
> watching (with and without a net) and  cooperation, tolerance and respect 
> for all of us concerned with butterflies.
>
> If people want to learn the butterflies of a particular area the key thing 
> they need is a good book which shows the butterflies they have in their 
> region and the regional variant of the species.  Glassberg's Western 
> Butterfly book will only lead to frustration.  I do not know if his books 
> are general enough to work in the east - possibly they do becasue there is 
> not so much variation.  For a  general book Kaufman's guide is far 
> superior in sorting out the regional variation here.
>
> Barbara Hardin Beck, PhD
> Adjunct Professor
> Department of Renewable Resources
> University of Alberta
> Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
> Barb.Beck at ualberta.ca
>
>
> 


 
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