Andrew Grebneff wrote:
> Now, I believe that most of the Philippines dealers buy from
> middlemen, and these guys (the middlemen) are not at all careful
> about making sure that data does not become mixed-up in the
> shell-markets... also the fishermen falsify the locality so that
> other fishermen hopefully won't go looking in "their" spots. Depth
> data are probably suspect too. What primitive fisherman is going to
> bother to write down the details of each haul and keep the specimens
> segregated? WHERE are they going to keep the separated lots of
> shells? How many of these guys can even afford to buy the pens &
> paper that would be required? They are POOR as in basically
> destitute. I doubt most of them can ever read, either.
>
> So in general it may be correct that PI specimens with detailed
> "data" are falsely-localized, and that at best only the province or
> island (Bohol, Leyte, Sulu etc) are correct. Possibly not even that.
> --
> Andrew Grebneff

What a truly sad, though likely true, statement.  So what is the point
of trying to get shells with full data when some or all the info is
likely not true?   It would only make since that fisherman are not going
to be able to keep all shells separate enough to know specific data and
it seems fairly possible also that, as you state, fisherman may be
tempted to falsify location data to keep others from finding the
shells.  I won't comment on the reading and writing ability of said
fisherman since I am not knowledgeable about the education level of
various poor throughout the world.

Someone please jump in and restore my now shattered faith in the data
surrounding my beloved shells.
God bless,
Jonny

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