I'm not quite sure you are understanding the difference between your hobby and the needs of scientific investigation.

I know the difference, and I'm not comparing this in any way to my hobby. Can't sexual differences and natural life-cycle behaviors be observed from living fish? Yes, I understand some would need to be sacrificed for looking at testes and ovaries and such, but is it really necessary to take 822 fish? I'm just not seeing why they couldn't take a smaller amount, even if it was 500. The main reason I'm complaining is because I think this is what Irate was talking about when he said that someone took 1000 bluenoses for a scientific study, and if the whole population was destroyed to make a few observations about the maturity of the testes and ovaries and sexual dimorphism in different sized fish, etc, etc, I just don't think that's right. These fish are rare(or just really hard to find) as it is, and then to go wipe out nearly 1000 fish? If it's not the same as what Irate was talking about, where they wiped out the whole population, then I'm sorry, but if it is the same one, I'm not the only one that doesn't agree with it.

Ahem, they were taken for a life-history study! Over 1000 specimens from this site. Why?

A THOUSAND!!! why didnt they just burn down the everglades too!
that is just horrible but they killed them all didnt they?

Rob

Hooboy...

Okay, FIRST- methods and technologies have improved since then, so while today it's easy to get the data from much fewer specimens, back then it wasn't.
SECOND- This didn't happen all at once; these specimens were taken over multiple years, and the fish were never wiped out all at once until well after this study was finished, and only then by other parties.
THIRD- In case ya'll missed it, these fish are hard to find and harder to reach. Going to the same spot over and over again was likely a matter of convenience as much as keeping the samples from the same population instead of risking data contamination from having possibly differentiated characteristics from disparate populations ruin the meaning of any data collected.
FOURTH- Knowledge isn't free. Sometimes the price is high. For example, pretty much everything we know about human embryology was learned either directly by, or derived from, the data collected by Josef Mengele's abominable experiments on pregnant jews in WW2. Disgusting, yes, but thousands of people owe their lives to it today. Don't get me wrong; THAT really WAS a disgrace to science, but it's a fun little tidbit I like to mention for the fun of the revulsion it causes. Hey, if you want to compare or even equate collecting 800 minnows to some sort of holocaust, then now you can. It doesn't seem quite as bad now, does it?

Finally, it's not very feasible for a professor and a bunch of transient students to set up and maintain an ongoing breeding program for a fish, especially a fish with a non-breeding reputation, even in an AG & Tech school like Auburn. The universities aren't keen on devoting so much space and resources on something they don't see a really good reason for pursuing. Heck, sometimes it's hard enough to get a fishtank set up in the hallway. I once tried to donate one to Troy and they turned it down for various silly reasons, mostly involving holiday schedules and regular maintenance. Also, bear in mind that while today we know how to breed them, back then they didn't, and going to all that trouble for something they didn't even know if they could accomplish must have seemed unwise. Somebody would have had to PAY for all of that, after all.

Probably the worst thing they did, in my own lame opinion, was letting too many people have too much access to the collection site data, which in turn led to the rest of the REAL damage. Oh well, better that than letting the other hotspots become too well known, I guess. Maybe that site will even recover someday now that everyone thinks it's not worth visiting.

All in all, while it may be irksome, they did the best they could with what they had at the time, and we gained a lot from it. It's easy to look back with hindsight and complain, but give 'em a break. Besides, this sort of thing isn't likely to ever happen again with today's advances.

Mysteryman raised a lot of good points that I didn't have a chance to earlier. I'm about to move my 135 gal. tank to one of our new teaching labs (at the Univ. of Alabama in Huntsville), which will be a logistical challenge, and I'm really only going to have it as a display tank for local north 'bama stream fishes. There's a chance I'll be able to do a treatment study of scarlet shiners for the effects of different levels of a form of testosterone in our new expanded animal facility, but that'll only need about 20 10 gal. tanks to do it (only!), and depends on recruiting a competent grad student to tend to it.

The original article in question is in a 1990 issue of the journal Copeia. If anyone wants to see a copy of the whole study, with all of the methods, I'd be willing to send you a photocopy of it (creating a .pdf is more work than I could pull off this week as I begin to move our teaching labs...). PM me with your address and I'll get it out sometime this week.

The paper can also be found here: http://www.srs.fs.us...johnston006.pdf

I think I have developed a crush on C.E. Johnston - not in a stalkery way, but in a cute golly jeepers you sure are smart kinda way.

HAHAHAHAHA. Golly jeepers!

I've considered riding up there to meet her a few times myself, but then I remembered that I'm just a nobody she'd not find interesting. Oh well.

Hmmm... that reminds me, is Herb Axelrod still in jail?


When I first read that study, I was also plenty steamed over it, but after I gave it some more thought I got over it. Now, if she had done that to Vermillion Darters or something of that ilk, I'd surely STILL be rather bent out of shape.

Charles Knight is a pretty friendly fellow. I'm sure he'd like nothing better than for you to visit and talk about bluenose.

HAHAHAHAHA. Golly jeepers!

I've considered riding up there to meet her a few times myself, but then I remembered that I'm just a nobody she'd not find interesting. Oh well.

Hmmm... that reminds me, is Herb Axelrod still in jail?
When I first read that study, I was also plenty steamed over it, but after I gave it some more thought I got over it. Now, if she had done that to Vermillion Darters or something of that ilk, I'd surely STILL be rather bent out of shape.

I was angry because I thought they destroyed the entire population, but now that I know they did not, I'm not really upset. I am still a little upset that they gave the exact location. Of course, I guess that was necessary, as different populations may looks a little different from others, and for the observations made to be legitimate, the exact collection location would be necessary.

HAHAHAHAHA. Golly jeepers!

I've considered riding up there to meet her a few times myself, but then I remembered that I'm just a nobody she'd not find interesting. Oh well.

Hmmm... that reminds me, is Herb Axelrod still in jail?
When I first read that study, I was also plenty steamed over it, but after I gave it some more thought I got over it. Now, if she had done that to Vermillion Darters or something of that ilk, I'd surely STILL be rather bent out of shape.

dear old herb fled the country down to some latin country so he can go and name stuff after himself

Oh, darn. I was hoping he'd stick around once he got free. Maybe he'll find something really nifty for his last hurrah.

Hmmm... that reminds me, is Herb Axelrod still in jail?

Why was he in jail?

Why was he in jail?

Axelrod had a big dispute with the IRS about the deductible value of an antique violin collection he had accumulated and was lending out to big name musicians. The dispute involved tens of millions of dollars, basically, and the IRS didn't see any reason to be hoodwinked. So Axelrod fled the country on his yacht and has been hanging out in countries like Cuba that have no extradition treaty with the U.S. I don't know where he is at the moment, though; Brazil?

Axelrod had a big dispute with the IRS about the deductible value of an antique violin collection he had accumulated and was lending out to big name musicians. The dispute involved tens of millions of dollars, basically, and the IRS didn't see any reason to be hoodwinked. So Axelrod fled the country on his yacht and has been hanging out in countries like Cuba that have no extradition treaty with the U.S. I don't know where he is at the moment, though; Brazil?

hmmmm, thats interesting.

They were Stradivari. Herb had an honorary doctorate in music. I heard he would let students play the instruments. Quite a character. The kindest thing Innes could say about him was that he taught himself to be a fish photographer Not somebody I would choose to knock back a few with.

Irate is right. You won't hear about the humanitarian awards won by Axelrod.

That's funny, that is exactly what happened to me one time in Ma. I took a big bucket full of silvery striped minners and dumped 'em in a big tank. It took awhile for everybody to settle down and color up. Eventually I noticed something different mixed with the blacknosed dace, chubsuckers and juvie fallfish. Even with Inland Fish Of Massachsetts I was having trouble keying out the fish. Luckily I was able to snap a decent pic of the beast and email it to the author, a professor at Harvard. He confirmed what I had begun to suspect - Bridle Shiner, a protected species. Put me in kind of a fix. Couldn't keep it legally, couldn't release it and the Prof didn't want it [had plenty in jars on the shelf]. The upside is I got a decent pic. Made a damn good captive too. Too bad they're rare.

"I took a big bucket full of silvery striped minners ..."

You sound like the average guy collecting bait, which a fishing license allows. No criminal intent on your part.

Actually, I am just re-reading posts on Pteronotropis welaka. I am looking for other sunfish to use for a spawning set-up. I have already kept and had spawn Longears and Dollars, so I don't want these fish again. Warmouths and Bluegill are too big. Is there another candidate sunfish that is smaller and has some color.

Edited by uniseine, 23 June 2008 - 10:55 AM.

How about orangespotted would they work.