RE: NANFA-- Maryland darter

Rose Lawn Museum (roselawn_at_mindspring.com)
Fri, 10 Jan 2003 11:08:50 -0500

Thanks, Todd.

Steven A. Ellis
Kennesaw, GA

At 11:01 AM 1/10/03 -0500, you wrote:
>"The Ends"? :)
>
>How could they do this...? You can't really, in good conscience, give a "est"
>association to their rarity. However, an example of how to demonstrate how
>many agencies determine how rare something is The Nature Conservancy's
Natural
>Heritage Ranking system.
>
>Here's a good chart from a Vermont agency's site:
>http://www.anr.state.vt.us/fw/fwhome/nnhp/Key%20to%20R,T,E%20Lists.htm
>
>Scroll to the bottom of the doc and look at the "Global Ranks". If the
>Maryland darter is only in one known stream, on one riffle in the world, it
>would qualify as a G1, which would easily be misconstrued by someone
trying to
>promote protection of an animal to the general public.
>
>Humans tend to get gonzo when you tell them something is "rare" because we
all
>like to possess things, and that trips something off in our psyche. Using
>this to the advantage of the animal is probably how someone justified to
their
>boss that it was okay to add the "est" association, especially since it
>doesn't have any natural cute, cuddly looking features (like a giant
panda) to
>catch attention on it's own. :)
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