OK, OK, being chronically politically incorrect, allow me to side
with Andrew.  Everybody on this list knows that Andrew's first
paragraph is indisputably correct.  So how do you differentiate
between "dead collected" and "live collected?"  Well, that may
not exactly be the problem.  The problem may just be "kneejerk
bureaucracy," as Andrew pointed out.

There is a word they threw in when they named CITES that is
fairly important when you are discussing endangered and threat-
ened animals.  The word is TRADE.  Even I have to agree that
there are some species that warrant the guilty-until-proven-innocent
FWS attitude: the truly endangered ones, like the California condor,
the white rhino, and any others where the loss of a single individual
is particularly significant.  This DOES NOT include Strombus gigas,
nor does it include any of the tridacnids.  If you differentiate between
"endangered" and "threatened," and they do, then you certainly do
not have to give them the same legislative treatment.  Preventing
the killing, possession, or trade in the endangered animals may be
completely appropriate, but even the powers that be recognized
that TRADE was the activity that would need to be addressed by
this congress.

Forget the truly endangered species.  What about these "threatened"
and "potentially threatened" and "I think they might someday become
threatened" species?  Since you can't stop the the desertification in
Africa and the resultant sandstorms, and you can't stop Pacific
islanders from dynamiting or bleaching the reef, what can you do?
You might simply stop TRADE in these species.  Not collecting,
just trade.  With the possible exception of a few isolated species of
tree snails, there aren't enough unethical scientific collectors out
there to put a dent in any molluscan species, and by the time ol'
"Bad Ernie" gets a pink conch for Aunt Hilda and Grandma Irene,
and one for a doorstop for each door in his house, he's done with
collecting them since he can't sell them.  Yeah, I know, black market
conch shells, right?  OK, so NOW penalize the guy who is caught
selling them.

There is a dearth of common sense in this world, and I'm afraid
the shortage is most critical among our public servants.

Malo, manuia,



Don

>
> This sort of kneejerk bureaucracy really bugs me. If the thing's dead, it
> only does good to collect it.
>