Ethics involved with collecting insects.

[Arachnomaniac19]

I'm interested in hearing different opinions on collecting insects. Should it be considered moral or not?

 

[The Snark]

Of the estimated 364,800,000,000,000,000, which ones are you referring to?

 

[Arachnomaniac19]

Of the estimated 364,800,000,000,000,000, which ones are you referring to?

All of them.

 

[Belegnole]

Since moral is a very subjective term, you would have a hard time getting a singular answer for all insects.

 

[Biollantefan54]

If by collecting, you mean killing, I would say killing them just to be killing them would be morally wrong...if it is for a purpose though, I wouldn't say it would be bad per se

 

[The Snark]

All of them.

Well I strongly suspect our dogthing would shed no tears over the collection and demise of around 2400 fleas.

 

[Exuviae]

As an entomology student, I think it really depends on the intent of the collecting. A lot of people do it simply because butterflies or beetles or whatever look "pretty", and I don't really think that is enough reason to collect them. However, insect collections can be extremely useful research tools. I, as well as many of my friends, take killing insects very seriously and we will not do so unless the specimen is important to our work.

 

[BobBarley]

I think its what the purpose of the collecting is. If you collect something just to kill it, I don't think that's very morally correct. I think it gets complicated when you collect insects to feed to other insects or to eat. (Not that I do either of those things, just a comparison) I guess it's somewhat like hunting for game or fishing.

 

[pannaking22]

As an entomology student, I think it really depends on the intent of the collecting. A lot of people do it simply because butterflies or beetles or whatever look "pretty", and I don't really think that is enough reason to collect them. However, insect collections can be extremely useful research tools. I, as well as many of my friends, take killing insects very seriously and we will not do so unless the specimen is important to our work.

I think its what the purpose of the collecting is. If you collect something just to kill it, I don't think that's very morally correct. I think it gets complicated when you collect insects to feed to other insects or to eat. (Not that I do either of those things, just a comparison) I guess it's somewhat like hunting for game or fishing.

I think both of you touch on good points, but to an extent it also opens up a whole can of worms. There have been a few articles lately talking about the killing of organisms for science and for collecting purposes, many that have been great to read. I personally am a collector, but it doesn't mean I necessarily go out collecting willy-nilly or go out with the purpose of taking lots of specimens. My goal is to get a specimen or two from a location of the species I'm after, maybe try to snap a couple pictures of other individuals of that species if they're cooperative (hint: they're usually tiger beetles, so cooperation very rarely happens lol ), and call it a day. When I'm searching for jewel and longhorn beetles, I'll do vegetation sweeps and beat on the vegetation too. I pick out what I want if there's anything and let everything else go. I used to put samples in kill jars when I was taking a taxonomy course, but now I just carry a small kill jar for a handful of specimens because I wasn't a huge fan of killing everything. Having good data labels is extremely important too because a specimen with no data is essentially useless (other than being used as an outreach piece).

When it comes to science, the more data typically the better, but that goes out to the window to an extent when it comes to collecting endangered species or collecting as many as you can find with the goal to sell or whatever later. If I were to collect an endangered species, I'd make sure I have all necessary permits and only take a specimen or two, preferably 1.1 with maybe an extra male or two. Collecting to sell can drift into a very scary grey area where people go out and collect ruthlessly to make enough money to put food on the table but drive a species to extinction in an area to do so. Not a huge fan of that kind of thing, but fortunately it isn't seen as much in the insect world (the tropical fish world is horrifying when it comes to this sort of thing).

Again drifting into a grey area is how do we think that species get into the hobby? Someone had to collect it at some point (I won't go into legality and international shipping). I've collected spiders, roaches, beetles, etc., with the goal of trying to breed them and make them available in the hobby. I try to do it as legally and as minimally as possible and try to only take a few specimens when possible. If the area seems to be crawling with the species I'm looking for I'll take more. If I'm only finding a few, I'll only take a couple or maybe just skip it and try somewhere else or come back the next year.

The thing to remember about insects is that they usually have large broods and can quickly repopulate. It's not like going out and trying to eliminate a species of bird or mammal or reptile. That doesn't mean that everyone should go out and collect as much of a species as possible. That can certainly have more long-term affects and should be avoided.

So I guess in a nutshell, I think collecting is totally acceptable even if not for scientific purposes (as long as a label with pertinent information is included). But in the end, don't collect endangered species and don't over-collect an area.

I'm more than willing to hear other opinions on the matter. This is a big subject in the natural history community right now and a fascinating subject to talk about

 

[BobBarley]

So I guess in a nutshell, I think collecting is totally acceptable even if not for scientific purposes (as long as a label with pertinent information is included). But in the end, don't collect endangered species and don't over-collect an area.

I agree with and stand by this too.

What are all of your thoughts on "pest" insects? That is insects that eat our crops, and are killed with pesticide. Morally correct? Morally wrong? A little of both?

 

[Tenevanica]

I myself am a biology student, (focus in entomology, and I hope to get a pHd in the subject) and I collect insects as a hobby. I keep and breed as many specimens as I can, but not everything does well in captivity. I do collect somewhat on the statement of them being "pretty," but my collection is research grade. If I wanted to do anything with them other than display them, I could do that. With a few exceptions, I don't collect more than one or two of an individual species. For now though, those tiger swallowtails look pretty on my wall.

 

[Exuviae]

I guess it really depends on the species and how many specimens are collected. Obviously, the more common a species, the less of an impact collecting puts on its populations, so threatened or rare species should be either left alone or collected sparingly, but there are other species that we see every day that would be completely fine losing a few individuals. Also, although I think it's a bit more iffy when collecting specimens to sell as souvenirs or decor, personal collections, even if collected for aesthetic purposes, can be useful as long as proper date and location of collection are noted. Amateur collections can sometimes provide important information that professionals might be looking for!

Also, I agree with pannaking22 about bringing species into the hobby. I think collecting things and keeping them alive is a bit different from just killing them and pinning them immediately, because you can always breed and release the babies if all goes well. This can also help preserve some species. I don't have the specifics, but I know someone who works with Piotr Naskrecki at Harvard, and he discovered and collected an African roach species, which lived in a specific cave system that was later destroyed by mining, possibly saving it from extinction. Obviously this is an extreme scenario, but I'm sure collecting can have similar small-scale effects as well.

 

[pannaking22]

I agree with and stand by this too.

What are all of your thoughts on "pest" insects? That is insects that eat our crops, and are killed with pesticide. Morally correct? Morally wrong? A little of both?

That's always a good question and has been a pretty hot button topic lately with people talking about eliminating mosquitoes and Zika virus and all that good stuff. To an extent, it depends on who's defining the insect as a pest. Lots of people consider all insects to be pests. I know most of us on here would consider the vast majority of those not to be pests, though we would agree that there are still a few pests in there. Some on here would say there are almost no pests.

In terms of the morals of it, I think it's ok to kill off pest species as long as it is planned out to minimize killing other non-target groups. For instance, back in the heyday of DDT, everything was dying. Not just all the insects, but it was travelling up to vertebrates as well. People were spraying it all over the place not really thinking about what else it was coming into contact with. Organophosphates are truly scary pesticides that should probably be phased out because they're toxic to pretty much everything. But humanity has come a long way since DDT. We have better pesticides and a much better idea on how to apply them to take care of the target pest while causing minimal damage to other organisms.

If we switch over to biting insects, I think everyone can agree that those are pests. I got my Master's degree in medical entomology working with ticks and mosquitoes, so while I enjoy the little buggers because it means I have a better shot at a job, I still think they should be considered pests and controlled. Mosquito control is getting down to a science now with mosquito abatement districts being very on top of the control to minimize disease outbreaks in humans through a variety of methods.

Sorry for the rather long-winded answer! I guess my easiest answer to this would be I think it can be a little of both. It's good to try to kill the pest, but much preferred that only the pest dies.

I guess it really depends on the species and how many specimens are collected. Obviously, the more common a species, the less of an impact collecting puts on its populations, so threatened or rare species should be either left alone or collected sparingly, but there are other species that we see every day that would be completely fine losing a few individuals. Also, although I think it's a bit more iffy when collecting specimens to sell as souvenirs or decor, personal collections, even if collected for aesthetic purposes, can be useful as long as proper date and location of collection are noted. Amateur collections can sometimes provide important information that professionals might be looking for!

Also, I agree with pannaking22 about bringing species into the hobby. I think collecting things and keeping them alive is a bit different from just killing them and pinning them immediately, because you can always breed and release the babies if all goes well. This can also help preserve some species. I don't have the specifics, but I know someone who works with Piotr Naskrecki at Harvard, and he discovered and collected an African roach species, which lived in a specific cave system that was later destroyed by mining, possibly saving it from extinction. Obviously this is an extreme scenario, but I'm sure collecting can have similar small-scale effects as well.

The personal collections I think are a little better only if they have data. Souvenirs and decorations I'm not as huge a fan of. I always see those pictures of the giant ironclad beetles with the fake jewels glued to them and that to me is wrong. I know it's a cultural thing and I know some tourists think it's really quaint, but I would likely be the one buying the insects to then remove the jewels and keep them in a nice enclosure lol! But that would just encourage them to go out and collect more which probably doesn't help the local populations that much.

I actually just got that species of roach Simandoa conserfariam, the extinct in the wild roach. It's a species I've been wanting to get since entering the roach hobby a couple years ago, so I'm beyond excited and happy that I have a few now! But on a less extreme scale (kind of...), just look at what's happening to Poecilotheria. Habitat loss is causing essentially all species to become endangered. While I'm not a big keeper of OW tarantulas, I sure am glad someone took a few out all those years ago to be captive bred! But I agree, even small-scale collecting can do some damage if the populations in an area are small. That's why whenever I collect roaches and things to try to keep and breed, I spread out my collecting a bit more to get a nice mix of genes and then I know I won't be taking too much from a single place.

 

[Tenevanica]

I'm gonna reply to Panna's last post here (I would quote but, WOW that's a long post)

I've never been a big fan of chemical pest control. Not only are there the dangers of releasing chemicals into our biosphere, but I don't think it's morally right to kill everything because we don't like them. I take it that some insects can damage economies by eating crops, but I guess that's what GMO's are for. It would seem perfect to just kill off every pest insect and save us all the pain, but there would be massive ecological consequences under those circumstances. The planet is in a thin balance and by doing something that wouldn't happen in nature (no super-predator would kill every individual of a species) we put whole ecosystems at risk. People forget that mosquitoes are an important prey item of dragonflies. Aphids are the sole food source of most ladybeetles. This is why I'm a big fan on bio-control. Using animals to control other animals. Why risk spraying harmful chemicals when you can use parasitic wasps to control tomato hornworms? The home gardener can use ladybeetles to control aphids, and nematodes to control harmful coleoptera and lepidoptera larvae. Dragonflies and Gambusia can control mosquitoes.

To drive my point home, here's a little story for you:
My neighbor has a little pond in her backyard. It's pretty, and filled with fish, but it was like a mosquito maternity ward. There were times when the larvae would blanket the surface of the pond. She always had a massive mosquito problem in her backyard that was only made worse by the fact that her pond was the only open water source for miles. One day she was talking to me and revealed she wanted to risk killing her fish by using chemical mosquito control agent in her pond. I asked her to let me try something before she polluted her backyard, and she happily agreed. I drove down to a reservoir, armed only with my aquatic net and knowledge of naiad behavior, and began sweeping just under the emerging stems of aquatic vegetation. I caught a rather surprising amount of naiads and transported them home in a bucket. I explained to my neighbor my grand plan, (which you should have figured out by now) and she was not too thrilled about it. She asked me why I would control a pest with another pest, (yes she was one of THOSE people) and I promptly explained that dragonflies were beneficial, and not pests. That was met with more rather ridiculous questions, such as "won't the dragonflies sting me?" and "won't they eat my fish?" My favorite was "will their filth poison the water?" Gotta love old wives tales . After explaining that these were safe, and would probably fix the mosquito problem, she reluctantly let me release the naiads into her pond. Guess what happened next? The mosquito problem was solved! Not only are the mosquitoes gone, but now there are beautiful Aeshna multicolor that you see flying around the neighborhood in late summer, and they came right from her pond.

I promise you, bio-control is the future.

 

[pannaking22]

I agree Tenevanica and I apologize for the long post! While I think that the use of pesticides is still very important, it should try to be combined with natural predators and even GMO crops where necessary cases arise (a.k.a. Intergrated Pest Management or IPM). IPM has become a lot more popular recently and I think it's a wonderful idea. Use pesticides when absolutely necessary, but try to minimize usage by tossing in a few predators or parasitoids. Some work better than others (parasitoids tend to be a bit more hit and miss because you have to re-introduce them fairly frequently once they've overwhelmed the host species) and while predators will eat beneficial insects as well and disperse when there isn't any food left, I think the benefits far outweigh the costs. It can actually help restore an ecosystem to an extent in some cases too and who would say no that?!

An issue that occasionally arises with bio-control is not always being able to see what will happen with non-target species. A species of tachinid fly was brought in to control gypsy moths and it decided it liked the native saturniids a lot more, causing huge decreases in population for those species. I'm not sure why it happened. It could have been because the researchers didn't spend as much time working with the fly before releasing it as they should have. It could have just been an unforeseen occurrence. I know that cases like that are the main reason why people are a little iffy on bio-control at times.

Not to say that your choice with the A. multicolor was a bad one! I think that was a wonderful idea using a beautiful native species. Heck, I would have done the same thing. Much easier and cheaper than using chemicals in that case. That example above was more towards trying to control an exotic pest with an exotic control species.

For anyone that wants a true bio-control success story, check out the Vedalia beetle here. I don't want to type it out because then this post will be ridiculously long lol. http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/pdf/10.1146/annurev.en.34.010189.000245

Bio-control is a wonderful option and while I don't think it is the full answer for the future, I think it's absolutely going to play an important role with the control of many destructive species (the true "crop pests" if you will). In the end, while it may not be as fast as just using pesticides, I think IPM will be the way to go and bio-control is going to be one of, if not the largest piece.

 

[Tigrosa]

Well, how do you feel when you see someone kill a fish or a "game" animal just to make a mount out of it?

If you're anything like me, you're repulsed by the waste of a very finite natural resource. Barring sustainable use for food, I believe killing is wrong. Personally, I think killing arthropods just to pin them is an incredible waste, and I question anybody who says they do it for the love of the animal. If you really loved them, you'd let them continue on their lives. They're there for a reason, they have a job to do. Take as many pictures as you want... heck, even a live specimen here and there wont hurt... but I think bug pinning is horrible and frankly, stupid.

I think Gary Larsen put it best.


The beauty of a creature in life can never be captured by pinning the animal's lifeless body to a board. If you see an arthropod while you're out in the field, and you want to be able to see it forever... take lots of pictures; note the date, time, and weather conditions... and come back. Imagine how rewarding it is to come back and find them... again?

Generally, people want to pin rare or uncommon species. Those species are rare and uncommon for a reason... the ones that are there, the ones that are left... they have an important job to do. They have the most important job in the animal kingdom. They have to ensure the future of the species. Leave them to it.

(Can you tell I feel strongly about this?)

 

[Tenevanica]

Tigrosa, you do understand that insect collections are invaluable scientific tools? They give scientists data on species that cannot be determined by simply taking pictures. It's not a stupid thing. It's as much of a hobby as this one, and you likely offended more than just myself by saying that. This is no excuse to mistreat our natural resources, but it's true that insects have hundreds of offspring at a time. If you collect responsibly, it does not hurt our ecosystems. I collect under the system of "take only one of every species, and keep alive what I can."

 

[Tigrosa]

Well, I respectfully yet firmly disagree. I can see collecting them for scientific data, but I think as a "hobby" it needs to go the way of the dodo.

The dodo, a species driven off the planet by human greed. Coincidence?

 

[Tenevanica]

Well, I respectfully yet firmly disagree. I can see collecting them for scientific data, but I think as a "hobby" it needs to go the way of the dodo.

The dodo, a species driven off the planet by human greed. Coincidence?

Insects will not die off because of human greed. Insects create hundreds of offspring from a single litter. They cannot be fairly compared to deer, as insects have a much greater fitness than deer. It would be very difficult to drive a species to extinction by simply collecting a few specimens.

 

[pannaking22]

Citizen science is becoming more and more important as time goes on. While I firmly disagree with someone going out and collecting as many of a species as they can find, I still think someone going out and collecting can provide useful information. Just look at Bug Guide as an example. Very few scientists have the time and funds to be able to go out and search where people could be going on the weekends or some enthusiast goes after they retire (scientists really don't seem to be allowed to retire anymore lol).

I guess the biggest question I have is what is someone to do if they like a group of insects that contains many cryptic species or are completely unidentifiable unless minute details are examined under a microscope? What about exceedingly small specimens in general? I collect jewel beetles for fun but I don't want to have a random species. I want to know what the heck is in my collection. Easy with some genera (Buprestis and Chalcophora in the US are typically fairly easy to sight ID) but completely impossible with others (Agrilus is the most specious genus of jewel beetle with thousands of similar individuals found around the world, only really reliably IDed by genitalia).

All in all, as long as a species isn't being overcollected, I think collecting for collecting's sake is acceptable. Keep in mind that in many cases now, insects are being farmed to an extent for people's collections, further reducing impact on the natural habitat.

If you're talking about a species that's rare because it's endangered, then I agree, collecting should be minimized. But many species are uncommon or rare because we don't know all that much about them. Collecting them is one of the best ways to learn more. In many cases, it isn't the collecting itself that gives us data. It's the method of collection, conditions at that time, time of day, location, host plant, etc. that really drive home how little scientists actually know and give us the information we want. This information can help with public policy.

There's a species of cicada in Illinois that should likely be put on the endangered species list for the state. The issue is that we don't know all that much about it. So the project I'm working on has collected voucher specimens from a variety of locations (typically 1-2 specimens per site) and once we have an idea of populations and range we're planning on asking for it to be considered a state endangered species that should require habitat protection and rehabilitation, much like what you see in vertebrates.