Texas Bird Auction (fwd)

[Sven O Kullander]

Sounds like well-intended charity but

- nobody owns any species

- the auction only benefits Audubon programs which might not be the best
solution

- the very activity increases the commercial price on biodiversity
research. If expectations among the less informed are that inventories
produce new species highly paid for by wealthy North Americans (probably
same as invest in or benefit from the rain-forest destruction activities),
we may expect fees and controls that impede work that is actually quite
cheap and much more instrumental to conservation reseach than Audubon-owned
enterprises

- gives the whole society the impression that systematics is like
stamp-collecting and further reduces financial and other support (those
guys can get by selling a few names now and then...)

Even though systematics is a lot more than naming animals and plants, the
public is very concerned about this portion in particular, and it should
not be commercialized. Anyone who would like to join in a petition to the
ICZN on this theme is welcome to drop me a line on the side

It may be worthwhile to investigate whether one may have names that are
apparently for commercial rather than zoological use declared unavailable.

If someone please post a picture of the bird we can have a little
competition who gets a name published for the species before March 5!
Better start now before the Audubon enterprise gets into TV shows on the
themes like name your own species, create your own creature, buy your own
closed world ...

Sven O Kullander