birding-aus

birding-aus Collecting

To: "" <>
Subject: birding-aus Collecting
From: Phil Gregory <>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 14:53:12 +1000
birding-aus

The posting from Gunnar Engblom in Peru opens another ethical avenue for
discussion i. e. collecting (shooting/killing) new taxa. I understand
that in the era of DNA analysis samples are important, so maybe some
blood and even a few feathers, plus photos, should suffice? Perhaps the
members of this expedition are going to do just this? Somehow I think
not, but I'd be happy to be wrong.

I have problems with killing birds for specimens, though I am aware that
the US has many strong advocates for this. I have facilitated it myself
with a possible new berrypecker in PNG, and also some strange
Pygmy-parrots there, but I now regret my actions.
Examples that come to mind include the collecting of a number of
specimens of the Poo- uli from Hawaii when it was first discovered a few
years back. It was clearly a critically endangered restricted range
species, but this made no difference, specimens had to be taken. I heard
the other day that about 3 birds now survive in the wild . Another one
that annoyed the hell out of me was the shooting of the first N.
American Lesser White-fronted Goose on one of their northern islands (
?Attu). Why ? To prove it had occurred, despite photos and field
descriptions a specimen was seen as necessary. To justify this, it was
of course a lost vagrant and would not have bred anyway, so it was OK to
kill it........!
Incidentally, is it really just US$5 to participate in the expedition
for the new ant-pitta?
Happy birding
Phil Gregory

To unsubscribe from this list, please send a message to

Include "unsubscribe birding-aus" in the message body (without the quotes)

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the birding-aus mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU