Natural History Wanderings

NPR has a story that raises the issue of Is Collecting Animals For Science A Noble Mission Or A Threat?

Collecting animals for science has been a standard practice for some time. Scientists want to study all the places species have been collected and paleontologists study fossils to reconstruct evolutionary patterns, researchers may use the specimens to study what a bird ate, or whether it was sick, or if it was exposed to a toxin.

However it is possible that collecting species that have small or isolated populations may pose a serious threat. A recent article in the Journal Science raised just that issue

It warned that scientific collection has the potential to hurt animal populations that are small and isolated. The article also asserted that “collecting specimens is no longer required to describe a species or to document its rediscovery.”

Read more at Is Collecting Animals For Science A Noble Mission Or A Threat? : NPR.