I agree with nearly all of Laurie's comments about the collecting of the
Yellow Chat. From the extract given from the paper, it cannot seem to be
justified. If the person can't tell the difference between an Orange and a
Yellow Chat then I don't feel that is a reason for taking a
specimen. These species are readily identifiable in my experience. If he
can't then he should have gone to the museum and looked at the specimens
until he could ....
I mentioned some birds having been collected in the Kimberley. This did
include a couple of birds that I would have found very very hard to
justify. A big moral dilemma is that you know that the person who has
taken the specimens is one of people doing the most to understand the life
of birds, and contributing a great deal towards their survival.
This made me think about why I don't feel anywhere near as indignant as
Tony and others. The main reason that I can think of is that I am aware
that far worse happens for mammals, reptiles and insects. It is common
practice on many environmental surveys to take "type specimens" for the
locality. This is probably because the taxonomy is still very fluid?
As for museum displays, my understanding is that they were flops as far as
the public was concerned. People prefer dinosaurs, fossils, whale
skeletons, aboriginal history, etc. Stuffing a specimen for display adds
absolutely nothing to the value of the specimen, so I suspect that it was
largely discontinued due to lack of demand. Stuffed birds take up a lot
more space to store after the display is discontinued.
_________________________________________________________________
Frank O'Connor Birding WA http://birdingwa.iinet.net.au
Phone : (08) 9386 5694 Email :
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