Rohan, while i broadly agree with you, nevertheless there are cases where a
large number of larvae might be required to settle a taxonomic question, to
study infection rates, or something. Don't throw the baby out with the
bathwater. I am afraid i missed the mail asking for the LFP, so why don't you
first ask the person concerned why 35 larvae were taken? Perhaps there was more
to it than one assumes? No point passing one sided judgements.
As far as developing a protocol is concerned, government and sensationalists
have done enough damage to the study of butterflies (see PRASHANTH MOHANRAJ &
K. VEENAKUMARI (2011) Butterflies of the Andaman and Nicobar islands: History
of collection and checklist. Zootaxa 3050: 1–36). So I personally woud be chary
of developing or imposing a one-size-fits-all protocol developed on "ethical"
standards, since ethical standards vary widely between cultures, say, what is
horrendous to a vegetarian Brahmin is perfectly fine by a lama or a shaman from
the Himalaya...so whose ethics are you going to apply, especially in a land as
varied as India?
Peter
On Thu, 24 Nov 2011 11:22:52 +0530 wrote
>
Dear Friends
Few days ago we had an email regarding leaves required for Red Pierrot
caterpillars. Said person collected 35+ caterpillars of Red Peirrot and ran out
of leaves. I still didnt understand the thing of collecting 35 caterpillars.
What is need of collecting so many caterpillars when u didnt have leaves to
feed them. i really feel sad abt the fact that no one on our group has asked
that person to leave the caterpillars on plant and rear only few caterpillars.
Instead all of us shared host plant name with it. I think one or two
caterpillars are sufficient for purpose of documentation. One might argue that
many caterpillars die due to infection, parasites etc. I think all the people
who are interested in documenting life cycles should think twice before
collecting caterpillar from the field. As a community of Butterflyindia we
should take some responsibilty towords conservation of butterflies.�
Regards
Rohan Lovalekar
--
Enjoy
