David Wright:
>The next one would *not* be sexable as a result of capture of this bird.

Well, actually we don't know, do we??? Why?

Well....

>We (out here in Cascadia) simply don't know how much overlap in plumage
>characters there is between males and females of this species.

So with enough diligence and effort my statement might be true.

Regardless, it has little to do with my point, I only offered
this as support for the concept that ongoing education of
scientists and field techs is important, regardless of whether
or not any direct scientific knowledge falls out of the
learning effort.

We could talk about the value of training software professionals
if you'd like to debate in a context with less immediate
emotional context :) :)

My point was merely that solving puzzles like this can have
value for science even if that value is indirect.

> Sexing this
>bird (which would require visual inspection of its reproductive organs or
>perhaps collecting blood for karyotyping) would not answer that question.

Actually I've been privately informed that wing-chord does it for
all but a very small percentage of the population...

>Biologists get enough flack from animal rights groups as it is for doing
>serious work (cf. full page ad PAWS ran in UW student Daily in 1994
>attacking Burke Museum collecting trip to Kamchatka).

Ugh, I had no idea. I didn't realize PAWS was so ideologically
rigid.

Was there no offer of debate made by biologists, or a counter-ad?

Last time I looked, UW was a University, and the students must
be educated! Letting stuff like this slip by unchallenged is
as dangerous as letting the Creation Research Institute
propagandize without challenge...

>In today's social and political climate it is important to avoid
>"even the appearance of impropriety."

Yes, but should we so easily give up the moral high ground in
the fight to define impropriety?

Adoption of AR prohibitions on research will lead to the
extinction of entire species at some point, I think there
is little doubt. At the minimum, risks of losing entire
species are increased. To my mind, there is nothing moral
about that and I refuse to cede the point whenever confronted
by what is best described as pure bullshit.

>The potential benefit of capturing the celebrated
>Montlake longspur doesn't outweigh the potential cost.

I tend to agree with you. This thread, however, suffers from
the confusion between discussion of this particular bird
(which I, for instance, was just using as an example in a
broader argument) and the discussion of the broad issue,
i.e. the efforts of the misguided to hobble research.

Having said all this, I would say that I'll credit the AR
community - small credit, and almost accidental - with
raising the conciousness (pardon the trendy term) of researchers
towards ethical issues. If non-invasive, non-painful, etc
techniques can be developed which replace current techniques
(like the use of live lures in raptor banding operations, for
which currently there is no subsitute despites the efforts
of some well-meaning people in the San Francisco area) we
should certainly adopt them.

But not at the cost of knowledge.


David Wright
dwright at u.washington.edu


- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>