An unsigned missive, written in first person and addressing the criticisms aimed at Dr. Jefferey Glassberg relative to the an article Dr Glassberg wrote in Birding magazine appeared on the Northwest Lepidoptera list serve yesterday. Dr. Glassberg is almost certainly the author, though most on the list have taken to calling it a possible hoax (mostly tongue-in-cheek) because it was unsigned. What I found most intriguing was the attempt by the author to moderate claims made in the original Birding article regarding the use of nets. Now "amateur" collectors are the only target. "Scientific" collecting is, apparently, okay. There are enough collectors in the lep community not connected to institutions who are doing genuine science that the scientific vs amateur divide gets pretty slippery. There are certainly contradictions in the notion of killing butterflies to protect them and collectors are going to have to find ways to get past that. Collectors are way too defensive on this issue and it's not helping their side. It may not always be appropriate to bring one's net along to every outing. Collectors may want to reassess the trade-offs between protecting collector rights and appealing to all audiences toward the bigger picture. But the Glassbergian frontal assault is abusive and insulting. The author of the unsigned letter to Northwest Leps did nothing to soften that basic problem.
The author also gets into a semantical argument over "official" taxonomic lists. Dr. Glassberg favors the NABA list which is not surprising given that he's the front-man for that organization. Others champion a list produced by the Xerces Society and published by the Smithsonian. And these are not the only two North American lists. There are a couple out of Canada and an international list, each at odds with the NABA and Xerces lists. The author of our unsigned post seems bothered by the use of a connector between Xerces and the Smithsonian (Xerces/Smithsonian). Obviously, the author fears that connecting the Xerces list with the Smithsonian gives it the appearance of being more official. There is no doubt that Lepidopteran community needs to get its collective act together and create an AOU-like general list of accepted names, subject to periodic scientific review. I, for one, am tired of being corrected by someone using a different reference, especially when it's some obscure regional reference that is being used to make the correction.
Posted by mbalame at April 25, 2005 7:04 PM