Eric and others--Some of the greatest people I know are in academia, a friend I have recently herped with is an ex educator and great guy--so I am not going to posh all of academia. But that having been said, I as well as many of us on this forum have run into this "academic bias" not just in dealing with someone such as ourselves, but also the teaching and viewpoints. I retired from a University in California and worked there 25 years, and there is a type of environmental teaching that takes place, and there is no room for any other explanation or viewpoint. But let's do correct one thing.. Who says that many of us are not academic in our pursuits? Many of us employ the scientific method, many of us have spent 20 or more years in the field observing and learning about our particular science. Many of us can look at a horned lizard or snake and immediately pick out the subtle nuisances by sight because of familiarity with the species. Many of us have made herpetology or some other field a life advocation, and many herpetologist have never spent much time in the field like the old guys did. I am a lizard man and one of my favorite books is Hobart M. Smith's book, its old but the observations and notes from the old herpers of the day are

awesome and still relevant and informative.



I have a solare horned lizard I have kept in artificial conditions for 6 years, and have bred and kept many other horned lizard for several years at a time while studying them, my colleague and I have kept our current lizards in captivity for over a year when no one has any luck with these lizards, the reason lays in our power of observation in the wild, which afforded us information not previously gleaned by others including experts. The problem is that I believe TWP doesn't believe that empirical evidence for such ideas can be brought to bare. And yes I believe an atmosphere of co-operation between the two sides would indeed come up with an solution that is good for everyone. I appreciate TWP and there management of wildlife of all types, of the people I have met they are good folks and under a lot of pressure with little help to support themselves. The other thing that I believe needs to take place is some of the Herp organizations should look into helping TWP with some of there field work. Case in point--I recently visited the Chapparel Wildlife Management Area, and realized this had been burnt over, I was there looking for pictures of the reticulate Collared lizard, but the fire was severe, they probably need a walk through on some of these properties to determine whats still there and what is viable what are the numbers per acre. Now we could help provide that service? You see I don't think state agencies get us or our value. Many of our people know just as much as their biologists. Last of all--and this does get me and I wish I could find out where this comes from--is there is some assumption whether out front or an assumption that non-academics are somehow commercials, or if I keep a snake or a bunch of lizards that this is some commercial venture or my reasoning for keeping these are commercial. Have I sold a few lizards? Yea but did I recoup the money I spent on raising them to adult hood. Of course not, most of my lizards are gifted or given to some academic pursuit. I have helped zoo's, herpetologists, and all kinds of people. I have written a paper on the ideology of captive breeding for gene pool and a possible program that could be regulated for certain species that are endangered or threated. Repatriation is a possibility with some ranchers and there is a host of things that we could do in conjunction with TWP that all would lend itself to managing our wildlife without us getting into pissing contests over this stuff. I am hoping that Gerald and Joe and others will be able to hopefully sit down at the table with other officials and come together instead of loosing the opportunity for some great and new ideas. See that's the problem---new ideas. They often do not come from academia, actually many of our discoveries in science come from non-academics, new and fresh ideas come from everywhere, academia does not have the only answers--and last of all to be fair here--you got to see that if TWP would sit down with us, they are going against a "tradition" that has afforded many but not all academics from the non-academic community which seemingly has a particular bias, so it would be a big thing for them to go against the grain and actually explore new and creative ways of addressing some of these issues. I pray that someone in a position of power there would at least explore some of these ideas. There are some very capable people out there that could articulate this stuff. I would love to be involved with that meeting....... :0)
-----
www.phrynosoma.org

[ Show Entire Thread ]