In a message dated 12/3/98 5:57:58 PM Central Standard Time, [log in to unmask]
writes:
 
> Come on some of you museum and university guys, tell me I'm wrong.  Your
>  problem is not being prohibited from collecting, rather it is the
>  inability to get enough interested field workers from the ranks of
>  "collectors" to actually collect scientifically helpful material in a
>  rigorously structured and targeted, long term program regardless of the
>  target specie's utility for personal display.
>
 
I am neither university nor museum personnel, but let me add my two cents
worth.  By and large obtaining permits does not hinder my work, but as I have
shared on this list previously my work has been hindered by the state of
Indiana which does not allow even biologists to retain even dead shells as
vouchers.  The problem we have run into there is that in annual surveys that I
do on the Ohio River on the Indiana side near Louisville, Kentucky we have
recovered specimens that were new state records or otherwise unique.  After
seeing our reports I inevitably receive requests from other researchers to
borrow our vouchers of these unique specimen.  I have had to refuse request
for specimens taken in the small area of the Ohio River that belongs to
Indiana, because I do not have vouchers from there.  I do have vouchers from
the Kentucky portion,