You have the exact same scenario with the imfamous Spotted Owl.
Leslie
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It's odd....  or perhaps convenient!   that the analogy be made between
protection (or lack of protection) of color forms of Liguus and the "Valley X"
form of the White Tail Deer.

Change "Valley X" for "Florida Keys" and you have a scenario whereby a form, a
dwarf form, of the White Tail Deer is protected simply because of its isolation
and the development over the many years of an ecologic form.  Dwarf or not, it
is still The White Tail Deer (Odocoileus virginianus), but is nonetheless VERY
protected in the Keys because of it's dwarf form....   regardless of the
abundance of other forms of the same species of deer elsewhere or the extent of
the range of the species.

Hmmmm...   should isolated color forms of Liguus be treated any differently?
Paul Mikkelsen
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In a message dated 1/21/2002 12:18:16 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

I can see it now - voodoo dolls thrust through with Terebra shells - but
I'll say it anyway . . . I think the "taxonomic approach" to species
protection is basically a valid one, when you look at the bigger picture.
"Sub color forms" is a pretty tenuous criterion for demanding protection.
Liguus fasciatus is an extremely variable species.  It is also an abundant
species in much of its range, where it is fully protected.  I don't see that
these facts would be altered significantly if all the specimens where "the
5th and 6th green stripes are a little closer together" were eliminated.
This situation is simply the result of excessive splitting of "forms", based
on insignificant characteristics.

White-tailed deer are abundant throughout the eastern United States, often
to the point where they are hazardous to traffic, destructive to human
dwellings, and serious carriers of disease.  If a housing project were being
considered in Valley X, the thinning out of a white-tailed deer population
would not be a major obstacle. However, if we approached this situation the
way we approach the Liguus situation, opponents of the project could hire a
wildlife biology student to study the local population.  He might discover
that white-tails in Valley X tend to have a dark band on the side of their
tail which other white-tails lack, or perhaps a lighter color inside their
ears.  Does this mean that the "Valley X White-tailed Deer" is a rare sub
color form that should be protected as endangered??  If so, Pandora's box is
open, and virtually every construction project will come up against
insurmountable beaurocratic insanity.  If you are going to seek protection
for a snail population which has nothing going for it but an extra stripe,
you'll have to come up with more convincing reasons than "sub color forms
are interesting to a small group of shell collectors".
This does NOT mean that I favor oil drilling in a National Reserve!  The
possible hazards of such a project are obvious. However, I do believe that
the dangers have to be evaluated in terms of their possible impact on a
widespread and variable species, not on local variations defined by trivial
and taxonomically invalid criteria.

Paul
M.