Nice post Ellen - I'd like to add one item on behalf of non-professionals.

Comets are not found tracked nor discovered by scientists.  Scientists
are secondary or
further down the feeding line.  The individual, often in a club, and
sometimes in a club
pursuing a goal searches the skies for odd things.  Comets are there to
be found.

It is common to much point contact science.  The first sighting of a
living pre-historic
fish came from a fisherman.  Look at the explorers - most are not
university Ph D's seeking
this or that - they come afterwards to study.


Martin

Ellen Bulger wrote:
> Shell clubs do good. Shell clubs provide data.
>
> This past term I had an assignment for one of my classes that was a
> real eye opener. Had to do a statewide biodiversity assessment for an
> insect family. I chose Apidae, a bee family. Who can resist
> hymenoptera? Not me. Besides, bees are not obscure. Their importance
> to human life is so obvious that even your average Kmart shopper would
> understand it.
>
> This will be a cakewalk, thinks I. It's not like I'm doing something
> obscure, like Thripidae.
>
> Ha.
>
> Just try and find data on any insect family that isn't under the
> eyeballs of hobbyist enthusiasts. Big Leps? You've got plenty of data
> from the butterfly collectors. Dragonflies? There's plenty of
> information there too. People collect them. Now there are even folks
> who watch them, who freak out at the thought of collecting even
> insects. But bees? Not even the little halictids, but the big obvious
> ones like the bumblebees? Ha. Ha and double ha!
>
> (I collect 'em, by the by. Net 'em and put them in a killing jar and
> stick pins right through their wee little thoraxes. Brute moi. Gotten
> stung too. Fair's fair. A bees gotta do what a bees gotta do.)
>
> Breathe easy Marlo. Except for a few students like myself, nobody is
> collecting. The bees are safe from hobbyists. They aren't safe from
> development, disease, pollution, habitat destruction or invasive
> species. They aren't safe from climate change and all the pond ripples
> that causes. You have bee species that are plant specialists and the
> yearly calendar is all screwed up and you can bet your "Condescend to
> the Wildlife Foundation" bumper sticker, there are extinctions
> happening right and left.
>
> Does it make you feel better if nobody notices?
>
> Shellers notice. Shellers can tell one species from the next. Shellers
> talk to each other. I can go online and ask the conch-Lers what is the
> furthest north anyone has collected Xenophora and folks will tell me.
> And odds are, a lot of the people who will tell me about such things
> are members of shell clubs.
>
> People noticing invertebrates? Good gravy, what a wonderful thing.
> I've stood on the beach on St. Thomas, at some huge awful resort,
> dripping in my snorkeling gear, and listened to someone get out of the
> water and say "Don't bother, there's nothing down there to see." While
> I've just seen a fabulous wealth of gorgeous worms and slugs and sea
> stars and tunicates and sponges and hydrozoans and what all else and
> had a glorious little beast that looked like for all the world like
> Bullina lineata, only more ruffled and ornate of body, with white and
> pale green speckles along the mantle (still trying to figure out what
> species that was) crawling across the palm of my dive glove.
>
> Holy heck, at least the shellers are paying attention.
>
> I wish there were bee clubs. There are bee keeping clubs, but those
> are all about Apis mellifera, not wild bees species. I wish there were
> wild bee clubs and Hymenopteran clubs and clubs for every order of
> every phylum of every living thing. And I wish they got together and
> held SOCIAL meetings and talked about lichens and had craft contests
> of, oh, embroidery featuring mayfly motifs and shared recipes for
> obscure echinoderms (though I'd take a pass when it came to tasting)
> and  did all those cool things like bringing in expert speakers and
> educating such public as could be bothered to pay attention and funded
> scholarships, and yes, collected, but mostly CARED and watched, and
> TALKED to each other socially, and kept an eye on their favorite
> organisms in the wild and elsewhere.
>
> Surely that is better for the natural world than all this attention
> focused on Paris Hilton and American Idol and Nascar and shopping,
> shopping and more pointless stupid damaging shopping?
>
> But golly, the few people who are interested in the natural world on a
> hobbyist level keep getting their knuckles rapped by enviro-puritans.
> Don't you know it is wrong to interact with the natural world in any
> other way than exactly the approved way.
>
> Baloney, sez I, because I can use the word I'd prefer here. Poo to
> shame-based eco-nagging that alienates people from nature and sends
> them scurrying to their television sets and the Home Shopping Channel.
>
> Oh, but you are allowed to watch nature on the Discovery Channel. >_<
>
> Get out there and touch it. Get out there and join a club, if you are
> lucky enough to find one.
>
>
>
>

--
Martin H. Eastburn
@ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net
TSRA, Life; NRA LOH & Patron Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot's Medal.
NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder
IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.
http://lufkinced.com/

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[log in to unmask] - a forum for informal discussions on molluscs
To leave this list, click on the following web link:
http://listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=conch-l&A=1
Type your email address and name in the appropriate box and
click leave the list.
----------------------------------------------------------------------