With regard to my source of information about orchid species extinction
[Peter O'Byrne, OGD V6 #423 Message 6], it is based on facts we all know. If
orchid fanciers find a given orchid species of interest, entrepreneurs will
propagate it artificially until all desires are fulfilled.
My comments to the OGD are usually as terse as I can manage. It is
conceivable that a given orchid species would have a habitat unusual enough to
make artificial propagation difficult, but under such circumstances,
collectors are unlikely to bother stripping it from a limited habitat. If an orchid
is too uninteresting to prompt artificial propagation, presumably it likewise
won't be stripped from its habitat. If I chose to be more precise, I might
have put it that no orchid species is truly in danger of being rendered
extinct by overcollection, even if its natural habitat is stripped, unless
counterproductive restrictions such as CITES interfere with its artificial
propagation. Would you agree, Peter?
With regard to considering the aggressive posture of USF&WL as the
source of Norris' problems rather than a routine computer traffic monitor, I am
suspicious if only for the situation involving Pepe Portilla a couple of years
ago. The scuttlebutt is that a USF&WL agent ordered 10 cycads of a variant
of a Peruvian cycad that grows in Columbia. Pepe supplied the requested
plants with CITES covering the Peruvian variant, was nabbed in California and his
life made miserable. This same USF&WL agent was caught trespassing Andy
Phillips' nursery in California and, as told by Andy, was persuaded to leave by
means of a 2 x 4 piece of lumber. If the damage to Norris was truly done by
a computer traffic monitor, are any of us safe?
My sense of fairness is particularly offended by attempts to tar the
consciencious Miami Ag Inspection Facility with the same brush more
appropriately reserved for the USF&WL agency and its handmaiden, the CITES convention.
Bert Pressman
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