You have the exact same scenario with the imfamous Spotted Owl. Leslie ___________________________ 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 ------------------------ 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.