Subject: bird collecting

I have had the material on BIRDCHAT about the pros and cons of collecting
bird specimens, vagrant or otherwise, forwarded to me for a while, and
after having just read the 95-page document that has ensued (10-pt type,
header material other than author stripped), I'd like to put forth some
personal views on the subject. Much has been written, but there should be
more as long as we need to attempt to resolve the conflict. After all,
we're talking about a schism among people who share a very strong common
interest!

My views are based on 45 years as a birder and 40 years as a museum person
and intermittent, at times active, collector. As the present director of a
small natural history museum, I am clearly biased, but in fact I spend as
much time in the company of birders, including all sorts of hard-core
vagrant twitchers, as I do in the company of museum ornithologists. Like
Van Remsen, I'm a short-distance twitcher.

Although one of the boons of e-mail is instant "live" communication, the
following was actually typed and edited over several days. It addresses
collecting in general much more than vagrant collecting, but--as has been
pointed out--vagrants aren't really collected much any more, so we must
address the larger debate. I apologize for repetition, but I've also tried
to address a few issues not covered before.

WHY ARE SPECIMENS COLLECTED?

There has been a lot written in answer to this question. I hope everyone
on the net understands that two words answer the question: RESEARCH and
EDUCATION.

It seems almost bizarre to me that so many people are against this
activity, even though these are the only reasons specimens are collected.
I know no one on this net would come out against research or education.
Yet, other than hunting to survive (if marooned in the jungle or the North
Woods), I can't imagine another equally valid moral justification for
killing animals. Are people really stating they don't think education or
research furnish such justification?

WHY SUCH A FUSS?

I honestly don't understand why there is so much prejudice against
collecting. It has been so carefully explained that scientific collecting
represents surely the *smallest* mortality source that we can possibly
document on birds or any other organisms. Any smaller and we're talking
about how many birds are killed by mammals falling on them (I didn't say
*stepping* on them, a measurable but perhaps not significant source where
large herbivores--not only cattle but wildebeest, etc.--graze).

Why does so much have to be explained about how we're all on the same side,
that museum collectors, by and large, are at least as environmentally
active as birders? I would suggest they're more active, because they're
usually connected with educational institutions, but that's perhaps not
relevant.

ONCE AGAIN, HOW DO BIRDS DIE?

The reason there's been so much discussion of population biology is because
it is so important to this discussion. I think those who have written that
most birders don't understand it are probably correct, as most *people*
don't understand it. Statistically speaking, scientific collection causes
*no* avian mortality; you've read it before, and I'll write it again here.
The birds collected for science in North America in a given year add up to
LESS THAN ONE PER SPECIES PER STATE/PROVINCE (at one bird each of 700
species and 60 s/p, would be 42,000; it's far, far less than that). All 3
museums in Washington, where we collect a "lot" of birds, total <2 per
species together. And of course virtually all are "common" birds.

I have complete confidence that Van Remsen's "prediction" about more total
birds killed by birders' cars speeding to megaticks than vagrants killed by
collectors is true, but I'd like to add another dimension. I state with
absolutely no doubt that more *vagrants* are killed by birders' cats and
windows than by collectors. At least in Washington state, I know exactly
how many specimens of out-of-range birds have gone into museums, and almost
all of them have come from the standard salvaged-bird sources: windows,
cats, road kills, and beached birds. Virtually all of these can be
attributed to human effects, including oil spills. We find very few birds
that die from "natural" mortality, which presumably is still much the
largest cause, so a very large amount of the avian mortality we observe and
can document is human-caused. Statistically speaking, none of it is for
science.

VAGRANT COLLECTING YESTERDAY AND TODAY

In the early 1950s, I was a teenager like the Remsens and Morlans of a
decade later--an insatiable birder. I birded every day of the year,
walking around the woodlands of Miami, which were often full of migrants.
While I was in high school I couldn't wait to get to the U. of Miami, where
I knew my education could take off. I arrived to find the zoology
department had a small "reference collection" (we called it "the museum")
that was to be my home for the next 10 years, as every bird study skin,
every snake in a bottle, every beetle on a pin, represented a pathway into
nature.

The bird collection was small, barely adequate for teaching and missing
specimens of many fairly common species and plumages of even more. I was
encouraged by several professors to get a permit and help develop the
collection, which I eventually did for all the vertebrates. Although
northern museums had specimens from southern Florida, no one had collected
birds in the area for decades. Collecting was to become my passion.

Peruse either of the two recent books on birds of Florida to find out how
many significant records ensued from this collecting. No one had any idea
about the status of the various empidonax species on the Florida peninsula,
but by collecting I showed that only two species were common migrants and
that the Least was a regular winterer. Some of you youngsters don't
realize that as recently as the 1950s we hadn't a clue about how to tell
these creatures apart in migration. By watching individuals and then
collecting them, I did learn how to distinguish them in the field,
something books just didn't provide. The same was true with dowitchers.
By collecting throughout the season, I learned the plumage changes (no
field guide described or illustrated juveniles) and was able to establish
what kinds of dowitchers were present and when. I also learned how to
distinguish them in the field, something we take for granted now.

The main message from my efforts of almost 4 decades ago is that a lot of
new information about birds was acquired that--at the time--could have been
acquired in no other way. The same is true now; the questions have
changed, but *one* of the methods of getting answers is still the same:
the collection of specimens. The future must build on the present, just as
the present has built on the past. We wouldn't know many of the things we
know at present without having collected specimens, and how can anyone be
so presumptive to say that the future will be any different? I don't
collect vagrants any more, whether I find them or not, as public opinion
means a lot to me, yet I agree entirely with Van Remsen that there is much
justification to do so.

AREN'T THERE ENOUGH SPECIMENS?

Many people have dealt with this question in one way or another, but I'd
like to add a few comments.

In many states and provinces, there *is* no more collecting of birds, much
less vagrant birds. There are a variety of reasons, including public
opinion (which translates into administrative policies), the difficulty of
getting permits, and the perceived lack of need for such activities in
biology departments and even some museums. In the long run, we are doing
neither ourselves nor the birds any service by this.

Something that hasn't been much emphasized is the need to monitor change.
Evolution is change, usually thought to be over long time periods.
However, several studies now have shown morphological changes in birds over
a century's time. When cause and effect are reasonably connected, these
are often among our best examples of the evolutionary process, and there
are surely many more to discover.

There is probably no better place to study evolution than on island groups,
yet the original series may be all that is preserved in museums of some
island bird poulations, or at least there are no specimens from this
century. Those species that are sufficiently common should be sampled as a
matter of routine every decade, so that students in the future will be able
to document the changes that have taken place. This is being done in the
Hawaiian Islands with some of the more common introduced birds, a very
exciting project that may not generate significant data for decades. Both
size and color changes and DNA structure can be measured. It would not be
a kindness to future generations if we some day stopped bird collecting;
there is too much yet to learn.

Biodiversity also has temporal as well as spatial aspects. I am involved
in a number of projects measuring the biodiversity of Washington state, and
they are all relying heavily on specimens for this information (birds least
of all). It turns out the entire record through time of some taxa reflects
the active period of collecting of particular collectors, and the last
records we have of several species in parts of the state merely represent
the last time someone pickled one. Now a great deal of money and time is
being spent while teams travel around the state looking for these species,
of which the collecting and preserving of a few even every 5-10 years would
have represented a good investment in our knowledge base.

The same problem doesn't exist for birds, which are abundantly represented
by sight records--or does it? A recent hypothesis about the spread of
cowbird populations into the Northwest can only now be tested, because most
of it happened after the period of active bird collecting in this region,
and we have only in the last few years tried to collect cowbirds to
determine which subspecies colonized the region. Sight records have not
been sufficient to tell us whence our birds; specimens will answer the
question.

For another example, from existing museum specimens "occasional"
hybridization between Townsend's and Hermit warblers was concluded (check
the most recent book on warblers), yet recent, directed collections have
shown it to be the rule in some populations in Washington. At the
distances most often observed, many of the birds look like one or the other
of the parental species rather than hybrids. Mitochondrial DNA from the
specimens has given deep insight into the evolutionary history of the
species. The hybrid zone, which is almost surely moving, can be sampled
for years to come to further our understanding of one of ornithology's most
interesting evolutionary scenarios.

AREN'T SALVAGED SPECIMENS ENOUGH?

Several contributors extolled the value of salvaged specimens, and there's
no question that they are of immense value. However, their implication
that nothing more was needed for research and education represents another
example of exactly what has been discussed: the real lack of knowledge
among most birders of the value of specimens. They possess *so much* of
value in addition to being able to use them to show people what birds look
like!

The "salvaged-only" concept was countered by Tom Schulenberg, with an
example of rain-forest birds that are never salvaged (what a shame there
aren't more roads, windows, cats, and oil spills in those rain forests!).
One thing salvaging doesn't give you is your choice of specimens--i.e.,
those of most value. Molting specimens, for instance, which are of great
interest from the standpoint of understanding bird biology, are scarce
among salvaged specimens, perhaps because they are shyer or less mobile at
that time. I have personally examined hundreds of salvaged owls, and
specimens from the 4-month fall period when they should be molting are
amazingly poorly represented. I would add also that there are plenty of
bird species that are virtually *never* salvaged on this continent.
Shorebirds are the best example.

I studied shorebirds intensely for two decades in the Northwest, and in
that time, the two museums with which I am associated received the
following salvaged shorebirds: a few dozen Dunlins (they are extremely
common, often fly across roads in flocks, and sometimes are hit by hard
freezes), small numbers of Killdeers, Spotted Sandpipers, and Common Snipes
(other than Dunlins, about the only shorebirds widespread and common enough
to intersect automobile paths with some regularity), a few each of the
phalarope species (dead ones float in to shore and are found by beach
walkers), and a couple of Western Sandpipers (present in the region in the
hundreds of thousands). There might have been 100 shorebirds brought in to
two museums in 20 years, virtually all of them these few species.

Because of the existing collections in the area, because I arranged for
some exchanges with other collections, and because ornithologists in the
state pursued the "active" collection of shorebirds (we shot as many in 20
years as are probably eaten by the falcons of Grays Harbor in a week),
there was sufficient material for me to examine to write _Shorebirds of the
Pacific Northwest_. The thoroughness for which that book has been
complimented would have been impossible without (1) the existence of
specimens in local collections (skins, skeletons, wings) and (2) the
collection of fresh material (I learned *so* much about the differences
between the golden-plover species by having dead birds--as opposed to study
skins--in the hand). By saving an outstretched wing with every specimen
collected (not available in older collections), I learned that many
illustrations of shorebirds in flight were incorrect. Among other things
we discovered a substantial fall migration of adult American Goldens here,
something I hadn't suspected, was not evident from older collections, and
could not have been determined in the field.

IT'S GETTING HARDER ANYWAY

Little has been said about another justification for active collecting
programs: places where collecting can take place are diminishing rapidly.
In my 27 years in Washington, many of the places that museum collectors
have gone to sample bird life have evolved in one of two directions:
shopping malls or protected sites. In the former there are no birds. The
latter are great, of course, just what we want to have, but by their nature
(public parks, for example) there is no more collecting allowed in them.
The situation has changed so much here in terms of shorebird collecting
that I doubt if I will attempt any more of it, which saddens me greatly, as
there are questions yet to be asked that can be answered only by taking
specimens (examples are given throughout my shorebird book).

CIVIL LIBERTIES

In the debate about collecting vagrants (and this can be extended to all
collecting of birds), there has been discussion about a basic difference
between observing and collecting. A bird can be watched and watched and
watched some more, but once it is collected it's forever absent from the
scene. This seems like an unbalance, but I'd like to point out another
unbalance in this debate.

Let's say there are two opposing points of view about taking specimens for
research and education (you and I disagree):

I think research/education justify collecting, and it's what I do. You
think the taking of life is not justified for these purposes, and you are
trying to get it stopped.

This is a civil-liberties issue:

If I have my way, there is essentially no effect on you, as a birder or
another human: (1) There is no diminution of plant/animal populations.
(2) As I'm discrete, you don't see anything being killed. (3) The number
of birds you "miss" because of me is minuscule.

If you have your way, on the other hand, there is substantial effect on me,
as a museum director and ornithologist: (1) My institution's further
acquisition of specimens is crippled. (2) Much or all of my ongoing and
future research and educational activities are prevented.

The reason this is scary to me is that I realize there are more of "you"
(birders, the general public) than there are of "me" (museum-oriented
ornithologists). Imagine if the "you" were people who preferred listening
to country/western music, and the "me" were people who preferred listening
to opera. In a similar scenario, if there were a lot more c/w people, they
might get opera banned from the radio stations and the CD stores.

I am very sympathetic to people who don't like to see (or think of) animals
getting killed, but I am disappointed in anyone who is inclined to change
everyone in the world to their way of thinking.

A PARADIGM SHIFT?

Among the people with whom I hang out--mostly college-educated liberals,
including a large number of birders--almost all have strong feelings about
animal rights and welfare, and most would like to see hunting stopped. A
few feel the same about scientific collecting, and, although most
acknowledge the value of specimens, even some of the collection users don't
like the idea of anyone going out and actually shooting a bird. This has
changed dramatically from when I was a college-student birder in Miami. We
carried a shotgun in the car on birding trips and routinely collected
specimens of interest. I was amazed to see on perusing some field cards
from the 50s that many different birders were with me on trips where I
wrote something like "Palm Warbler - 60, 2 coll." In that case we were
trying to document the relative abundance of the two subspecies by
specimens, but we also collected any species that represented a significant
record. There were no arguments between birders and collectors; we
collectors were among the most gung-ho birders, as is the case today in
Louisiana and Alaska, those outposts to which most references are made.

There really has been a sea change in the attitudes of many Americans about
killing animals, which I think is positive. It does indicate a greater
respect for nature, about which others have written eloquently. But to
want to shut down something that contributes to our knowledge of the
natural world in the direct and important way that the taking of specimens
does seems, on the contrary, a significant regression. I hope it is no
more than a temporary adjustment that will leave intact the opportunities
for research and education that are provided by museum activities.

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416