wolf
Aurelian
Posts: 132
Country: Norway
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Post by wolf on Aug 2, 2019 14:58:13 GMT
Yesterday 2 danish butterfly collectors got arrested in the Norwegian mountains by police after tips from the public that they were collecting protected butterfly species. When police got to the two men they had around 40 specimens of the Apollo butterfly(Parnassius apollo) on them. They were later released but are going to face some kind of criminal punishment. Most of the news stories were either in danish or norwegian, but i found a rather poorly translated news article on some random site. They will probably get a big fine, nothing more vaaju.com/norway/danish-butterfly-hunters-arrested-in-norway/ |
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Post by Paul K on Aug 3, 2019 0:33:48 GMT
Greedy and irresponsible collectors who give bad name for all of us.
Why would anyone want to run with open net near public chasing 40 Apollos, stupid, stupid ignorants.
Two, three wouldn’t be enough.
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Post by trehopr1 on Aug 3, 2019 5:19:58 GMT
There will always be people willing to risk life and limb or fines to capture things forbidden (regardless of the country). The temptation of possible monetary gain is just too great ! More importantly however, their are always monied buyers out there eager for such forbidden fruit (so to speak). There are black markets out there for everything and even if these guys were just "risk-taking" collectors suffering if you will a "momentary lapse of reason"; then they surely would have found a dealer somewhere more than willing to strike a deal for such hard one pieces....
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Post by miguel on Aug 3, 2019 13:36:01 GMT
40?Really? I don´t know why you have to collect so many specimens os a specie,evev if they were common.
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Post by wollastoni on Aug 4, 2019 11:59:47 GMT
Stupid people...
And another bad PR for entomologists
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Post by luehdorfia on Aug 4, 2019 13:14:51 GMT
It’s stupid and sad, definitely. But then again last week in the Austrian mountains I found a beautiful little piece of land, surrounded by rocks, 2300metres up high, with plenty of Parnassius sacerdos flying, really tiny just about 200m by 30m big, the rest land was void of butterflies since it was used for grazing. Two days later I walk by it again, and there were about 30 cows on that little meadow. The foodplants of Parnassius sacerdos completely rampaged by these 400kg heavy animals, the ground was so soft that the cows were sinking in by almost half their feet.
I had photographed some really beautiful and rare orchids in that little meadow which is not only high up the mountains but also very wet, perfect for alpine orchids and sacerdos foodplant saxifraga. Almost all the orchids trampled into the mud, the whole meadow covered in shit.
But if I had caught one sacerdos or dug out one orchid, I’d get a heavy fine and everybody would make me responsible for the downfall of nature.
Come on that’s just ridiculous. If we protect these animals and plants then they should also be really cared for by everyone and no exception for stupid farming like that. The law is retarded, and the same people who called the police on these two butterfly collectors (I am of course also against collecting apollos) these people would probably also have called the SS in Germany when seeing Jews, because it was the law to deport Jews. Sometimes the law is wrong, and we should work on changing it, sadly us entomologists are always just a tiny group, and nobody listens to us.
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Post by Paul K on Aug 4, 2019 13:52:27 GMT
Insects don’t need protection, habitat does.
Protection of insects is nothing else than covering government corruption and habitat distraction.
I’m not against collecting apollo, I’m against greedy collectors who don’t know when is enough, when to stop.
I hope they will receive steep fines.
We live in difficult times as collecting is seen as a crime. I don’t run around with open net anywhere, anymore. I don’t like the look of people.
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Post by nomad on Aug 4, 2019 21:22:43 GMT
I would agree with Olivier that collecting protected butterflies is just plain irresponsible and adds to the negative views collectors already increasingly get. It is hard to believe that these were just for private collection, if so why take 40, it seems hard to believe some were not taken for monetary gain. Habitat loss has effected many species and will continue to do so, but that is no excuse for what these two individuals did.
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Post by nomad on Aug 5, 2019 10:57:58 GMT
40 in total =20 each, =10 pairs, half for personal collection, half for exchange...not that hard to understand Which goes to show that there are others then, European collectors, who are in contact with these two, who would exchange for known protected species.  |
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ciervo
Aurelian
Posts: 161
Country: Australia
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Post by ciervo on Aug 5, 2019 11:38:51 GMT
40 in total =20 each, =10 pairs, half for personal collection, half for exchange...not that hard to understand Which goes to show that there are others then, European collectors, who are in contact with these two, who would exchange for known protected species. Its simply a hypothetical... 🙄 |
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Post by nomad on Aug 5, 2019 12:23:49 GMT
Certainly, perhaps they just wanted a long series one subspecies for their cabinet, whether or not it was an illegal one. I guess some collectors can be obsessive, no matter what it is.
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Post by luehdorfia on Aug 5, 2019 19:41:35 GMT
I have seen apollo ssp series far bigger than 40, normal good size for a series should be 20-30 pairs right? The most impressive one was a Parnassius apollo vinningiensis series with more than 50 pairs, but all of them collected over 30 years, and part of them raised from eggs, after setting the female back in the habitat, so more or less “responsible” collecting
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Post by nostrodamus on Aug 9, 2019 10:04:49 GMT
Curious to see all the collections of people who are collecting European butterflies.... who doesn't have (legal) Apollo species in their collection.
Must be less then 5%.
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