---- "Clara B. Jones" <foucaul...@gmail.com> wrote: 
> Ecolog-l-ers:
> 1. ...a few individuals have contacted me with concerns about the ethics of
> my post requesting "bushmeat"...
> 2. ...i was not concerned about the ethical dimension for several
> reasons...perhaps, the most important is that it didn't seem likely at all
> that anyone here or there, so to speak, would go to much trouble or expense
> to answer my "call"...

You simply asked for samples, it seemed evident that you hoped to receive them.

> 3. ...also, most anybody reading our listserv's posts would be operating
> from a platform of professional ethics*.....
> 4. ...further, i was using no monetary incentive to induce respondents to
> reply to my query, a topic of concern to many professional organizations...

Ethical concerns can involve other than money.

> 5. ...i was using "bushmeat" broadly...and, though, i would not be averse
> to receiving samples from outside the US...i was thinking not only of
> domestic folivore or folivorous taxa that i've not sampled [tasted] such
> as, opposum, but, also, was thinking of tissues from zoo animals,
> post-preparation museum specimens, tissues culled at animal "farms", and,
> the like...

Regardless of your answer to me in private, it is simply the case that the term 
"bushmeat" or "bush meat" is not applied to game in the U.S.  People speak of 
game.  We do not call the habitats occupied by wild animals here "bush," and 
wild game long ago ceased to be a commercial product here.  Whenever one hears 
or sees the term, one is definitely not taken to the high plains of Colorado or 
the mountains of Wyoming.  It is Africa that one thinks of.

You certainly did not mention in your appeal that you were asking for samples 
from animals sacrificed for other purposes.  You simply asked for "bush meat."  
I have never heard of a specimen sacrificed for science referred to as "bush 
meat."

You have referred to the o'possum repeatedly as a folivore.  The only U.S. 
o'possum is the Virginia O'possum, _Didelphis virginiana_,.  It is an omnivore 
that feeds on a wide variety of small animals, carrion, fruits.  Perhaps it 
does eat leaves, but the things I mentioned are its mainstays.  It's dental 
apparatus is not well suited to a diet of leaves.  And I assure you that 
despite your earlier statement that it is not a preferred food of those who eat 
wild animals, many a person in the southern U.S. has eaten many a "possum."  

> 6. ...my opportunistic project aside, i've studied the topic of "defensive
> mimicry" in mammals, and it has occurred to me that organisms may advertise
> unpalatability via several modalities, not only olfactory, visual, &
> auditory [most common in mammals]...
> 7. ...John Garcia's work showed that rodents, anyway, may base future food
> selection and foraging decisions on taste of a food product
> 8. ...there are many questions that pertain that, in my opinion, would
> justify rigorous treatment..
> 9. ...the area of Conservation Biology is highly charged emotionally,
> possibly, preventing us from addressing the topic of when and under what
> circumstances we support the conduct of invasive experimentation with
> animals in natural conditions...whatever their Red Book status may
> be...and, related to this, whether we have an ethical right or
> responsibility to prevent others from doing so [within legal bounds]...
> 10. ...it remains to be seen whether there will be sufficient interest to
> continue these conversations...
> 11. ...i appreciate all communication received to date...sincerely, clara
> 
> 
> *...leading one to trust that the respondent would behave professionally as
> we all do when we, for example, share a pre-print w a colleague, requesting
> that it not be quoted...
> 
> 
> -- 
> Clara
> Director
> Mammals and Phenogroups (MaPs)
> Blog: http://vertebratesocialbehavior.blogspot.com
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/cbjones1943
> Cell: -828-279-4429
> Brief CV:
> http://vertebratesocialbehavior.blogspot.com/2012/10/clara-b-jones-brief-cv.html
> 
> 
>  "Where no estimate of error of any kind can be made, generalizations about
> populations from sample data are worthless."  Ferguson, 1959

--
David McNeely

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