On: Mon, 5 Dec 94 10:24:14 -0800. Kelly Cassidy <kelly at cqs.washington.edu>
said among other things"

>... The law against feather/nest/egg collecting is a fine example...
>... The law is designed to prevent the wholesale
>slaughter of birds for their plumage, etc.
>... The reason you can't collect feathers is that only the
>collector knows whether the feathers came from from a live or
>dead bird.
>You might explain to your students the reason for the law, but
>also add that picking up a feather off the ground does not hurt
>the bird.

Whatever the intent of the law(s) may have been, I suppose that there
are other reasons, _and_ other regulations at all levels of government
including down to local/regional park districts, which impose constraint
on the collecting of nests, feathers, and any other "stuff".

Collecting this stuff might not hurt any of the birds, but think about this:
If I collect a feather I find along a trail, the next person musing
along that trail won't have the pleasure of finding and appreciating it.
Ditto for a nest, or any other stuff. Given the heavy traffic along most
of our trails, little would be left to find if each of us picked up just
one feather (yeah, jillions of feathers, but most are not shed along
heavily, or even lightly hiked trails) or nest.

Carefully planned and coordinated collection (and curation) of stuff for
use in educational settings, such as classrooms, should be facilitated,
but...

Tread lightly, please.
Peter