Collecting

[Dave Chesmore]

I ead with interest the comments by Dennis Paulson and Martin Dube
about collecting.

We had a long debate on the Leps-L (Lepidoptera) listserver which
lasted over 6 months about the pros and cons of collecting.  I
collected over 200 pages of email messages, some of which were
acrimonious and even rude and insulting. I was going to summarise
and publish it but haven't had the time.   The debate centred around
whether it is right to collect butterflies and moths.  It soon became
obvious that there are 2 polarized views - butterflies are beautiful and
should not be collected (but it is OK to collect moths!!), and collecting
has little or no effect and is therefore OK.  Certain members of Leps-L
have such strong views that the messages became very insulting at
one point.

In the UK there is an increasing anti-collecting attitude put foward
mainly by Butterfly Conservation.  This attitude makes collectors
(both amateur and professional entomologists) very uneasy and I go
out of my way to avoid confontation.  My collecting is restricted to
species that need to be identified and shown to regional recorders for
verification and for scientific use.  I resigned from being Chair of the
local branch of Butterfly Conservation for this reason.

I would be interested if members of taxacom have had similar
problems.

Dr David Chesmore
Environmental Electronics Research Group
Dept. of Electronic Engineering
University of Hull, Hull, HU6 7RX
Tel: +482 465062;  Fax: +482 466664
Email:  E.D.Chesmore at E-Eng.Hull.AC.UK