Insect Collecting, a Dying Hobby?

[wollastoni]

Right wingedwishes the youtube channel will be a nice project for the future.

I would add that as long as there will be nice butterflies flying in gardens, there will be plenty of new entomologists.

[Deleted]

While it is right to be concerned about the future of entomology I must make a point that seems to have been missed, we tend to concentrate on the buying and selling of entomological specimens, prices, rarity etc and I admit, for me, this gives me a tremendous buzz when I find out I have a dozen or so specimens that are worth well in excess of $1000, especially when I paid peanuts for them but that is only part of this hobby. What makes it the king of all hobbies to me is that it can cost as much or as little as you want it to, a great incentive for the cash strapped young and old to begin. Equipment can be bought cheaply second hand or can easily be self made, the joy of being out collecting, then spreading your captures, gaining in skill and knowledge, acquiring data, breeding any species that come your way, the scope is endless. This is a hobby that anyone can enjoy whatever their station in life may be, as cheap or as expensive as you like.

[monasteria]

May 19, 2014 7:45:57 GMT -8 wingedwishes said:

4. WE NEED AN ENTOMOLOGIC STEVE IRWIN. No explanation needed here. Perhaps we need a series of You Tube videos showing happy people on expeditions educating as the video plays. Maybe this exists already but I have not found a insect only youtube channel.

Such an entomologist does exist: Ruud Kleinpaste, a Dutch guy who lives in New Zealand. He is more into beetles, but in his tv show, butterflies were featured as well (for example he searched O.alexandrae and one actually landed on his head  . But I haven't heard of him for quite a while.

Regarding regulations: I agree that the way these are constructed does not always make sense and that people with knowledge should be consulted when they are made. But regulations do make sense as collecting can actually harm small remaining populations of rare and expensive specimens. The countries where those specimen live in should protect them, but also allow controlled and legal trade to destroy the black market. Protection also gives a focus on "flagship" species which are also attractive and interesting for people who are generally not interested in Insects.

[nomad]

I still believe there is a great future in collecting butterflies. Especially in the remoter regions where there are many new species to be discovered or rediscovered after a long absence. There are still very intrepid collectors such as Laurie Wills and others, who risk life and limb in the remote jungles and mountains to follow their passion. So heads up lets be positive. Olivier is right, go to one of the big insects fairs and they are always packed. Just look at these kids in the image below running to get into the Modena Insect fair. On the Bus back to the city centre, teens on the bus with up to date fashionable cloths and phones held storeboxes for all to see. O.K so you cannot swing a butterfly net in Britain and even if you do we have so few butterflies it will not take long to obtain the common species, its easy to get a full collection. All the rare British butterflies occur in Nature Reserves you will have to get the rest from old historic collections. So it should not take that long. Most collectors of British will have them all anyway and will only be interested in aberrations. There will always be British collectors but there heads will be turned towards the more exciting lepidoptera of those far off places.


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No shortage of collectors here. Modena 2014.

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Hurray and hurry lets get to that fair.

[wingedwishes]

I forgot to add:

5. We also need wealthy patrons to finance expeditions. Before there were research grants, there were people like Rothschild. If you personally know Bill Gates, tell him a butterfly could be named after him.........

[mokky]

Hi guys,

For your information, I would like to introduce the situation in Japan. Now the insect collectors are getting older and the majority of them is over 65 or 70. Exactly the decline in this trend seems to continue. As you may know, Japanese collectors have been extensively gathering insects from nearly all over the world. Unfortunately we did not have the good reference collection such as NHM in London or Paris Museum. We have been definitely a "developing country" in this aspect. Thanks to the efforts by senior colleagues, now we enjoy checking various specimens without visiting European museums. But now we face a serious problem. We do not have the culture of natural history among citizens. So many good private collection are rapidly disappearing. Sad thing. On the other hand, the collecting regulation gets more strict. As the advancement of digital camera, many people abondoned collecting now. At least I am sure collecting insects is good introduction to know the nature. Therefore I am trying hard to make young people get interested in butterflies and insects.

Mokky

[obewan]

In case anyone was wondering, Bio-Quip purchased ALL of Insects International's specimens. And they closed due to the death of one of the Larson boys I think...
obe

[boghaunter1]

Re: "WE NEED AN ENTOMOLOGIC STEVE IRWIN" & "Such an entomologist does exist: Ruud Kleinpaste, a Dutch guy who lives in New Zealand." Yes... we certainly could use a new modern Steve Irwin... here in CANADA we had (still have) such a character; his name was/is Georges Brossard, the founder of the Montreal Insectarium. For 2 seasons back around 2006-2007 he created a television series called "Insectia" & "Insectia 2". There were 26 half hr., different insect order episodes (around 540 minutes or 9 hrs. total viewing time!) & were a big inspirational hit with entomological folk/collectors like myself... I actually taped all the shows on VHS. I understand his shows were broadcast in more than 150 countries & were very popular. Ruud Kleinpaste was also a very entertaining fellow, but I think he was only on air for a single season a few yrs. after Georges Brossard's Insectia.

Georges was highly entertaining & I really missed watching the shows which were very inspirational as he was a gifted, humerous amateur entomologist travelling all over the world & delving into all the insect orders... Since my old VHS recorder broke yrs. ago I couldn't view the tapes anymore & was somewhat disappointed, but after some searching on the internet this past winter, I was able to find brand new DVD copies of all the original shows. They are available in both English & French versions. Some episodes of Insectia are available on Youtube... just search on Google for "Insectia" & "Georges Brossard" to find more information. I personally loved his shows & am very happy to be able to watch them again & highly recommend them to all entomologically inclined amateur collectors. It should be pointed out that Georges is a collector & has his net with him all the time & this could offend the "take pictures only", non-collector, hyper environmentalist crowd...

John K.

[jshuey]

A few things about this thread bother me. I realize this will probably piss a few people off, but if you’re really interesting about future insect collectors, it’s worth the blow back to me.

First, is the decline of internet sales or attendance at insect fairs really indicative of the “decline of insect collecting”? Do we really care if there are fewer chnaces to hit the BUY IT NOW icon? Or do we care if there are fewer people carrying nets in the field? I’d say the later, and I don’t see a tremendous decline in the number of young kids collecting in my region. Perhaps because there is a fairly strong network of field biologists that support up and coming collectors around here. There weren’t really any other kids collecting when I grew up either and it wasn’t until I was in college that I ran into others with similar interests. But today, a lot of that has changed – and you can help up and coming collectors learn the tricks of the trade and hopefully develop a love of insect collecting. While I don’t think that there is much of a mentoring group out there for eBay insect clickers, there is plenty of help for kids that carry a net. And there are still quite a few of them out there, if you look for them and try to provide opportunities for them.

Second, I note the statement “The Butterflies Through Binocular and Nature Conservancy types have made killing poor bugs a societal no-no.[/i]” I have to comment on this one specifically "as a Nature Conservancy type" and the two concepts above are entirely unrelated. NABA has done several things, both good and bad. But I will give butterfly photographers/watchers credit for getting outside and experiencing nature. You don’t see them on EBay buying picture of butterflies – they are out experiencing nature first hand – and whether you like them or not, that’s a good thing.

Relative to The Nature Conservancy, I happen to be the Director of Science in Indiana for said organization. I have four teams of collectors in the field sampling insects at 9 sites in Indiana this season. Moths will be sampled monthly through the year. Native bees will be spot sampled at the sites twice this season. Baited pitfall traps will be run for beetles using carrion, dung and fungi to assess multiple families of coleopteran. Ants will be pulled and IDed out of the traps as well. And leafhoppers will be sampled twice this season as well. Who is paying for this? The Nature Conservancy – that’s who…. So, while you whine about TNC making it harder to collect insects, I’m paying out about $30,000 this year to have insects collected specifically for TNC. Plus, for the last 5 or 6 years, we paid for sampling of southern Indiana moth communities as part of a sustainable forest harvest assessment program. A couple hundred thousand insects will be collected in this state alone, paid for in full by TNC.

And while all this sampling is happening in Indiana, I and a coworker will be in Belize this summer doing what you might ask? Well, sampling insects and training a local student on how to sample insects for 6-8 weeks. I’d like to get about 4-5,000 new distribution records for Belize this summer. So don’t give me any crap about TNC somehow making “killing poor bugs a societal no-no”.

Finally, I can’t give Cabintom enough praise for his interesting posts about field work in Africa. Same for Laurie1 in New Britain and New Ireland. These guys (and others) are all about exciting field work in exotic places and I love hearing what they have to say. How do we create the next generation of these guys? These guys and others who swing nets in the field are going to excite the next generation of collectors. And you can have a blast in not-so-exotic places as well -- I had a hell of a day in northwestern Indiana yesterday. I helped set up blacklight traps and a small mammal trap grid across a site, as well as watched-out for fairly rare skippers.

So, defining the future of insects collecting based on a decline EBay listings or fewer dealers doesn’t really get to the heart of the issue. How does “internet insect collecting” really differ from collecting baseball cards or the proverbially nasty stamp collection comparison? It differs because the insect collectors I personally care about are field oriented collectors. They thrive off the excitement of new places, new cultures, and new discoveries. Getting people hooked on insect collecting is all about generating excitement in the field, not about the nuances of an internet purchase.

With advance apoligies to all,
John

[wollastoni]

Right

Let's also praise the work of some associations like ALF (Association des lepidopteristes de France) which organizes important collecting trips abroad everyyear.

[Deleted]

I know many collectors who do no field work and buy all their specimens on the internet, each to their own but it's not for me. I have been doing fieldwork for 40 years and love every single minute of it and relish each trip, those long winter months drag by and seem an eternity until they pass. As you get older you know that these collecting seasons can't go on forever and so they are savoured, in good company, and cherished not only for the specimens but the memories also. I have only been on the internet for about 8 years so my collection was pretty substantial before then but it has opened up new avenues and led to many good friendships and I treasure these also.

I have nothing against cheque book collecting, many have no desire to do field work but in my opinion they are missing out on so much.

[nomad]

Mokky, I believe has hit the nail on the head. Seriously many of the serious collectors seem to be 50+ and upwards. I know there are young collectors but the majority seem to be older. I was a field collector in Britain for thirty odd years, happy days spent in the field with a net or with my moth trap. I collected all over the U.K from the mountains of Scotland to the sand dunes of Cornwall. I have a intimate association with the British lepidoptera. However our interests are not static, I now am interested in the lepidoptera of New Guinea and its Islands. Being so very far away from the U.K and because they are so difficult of access, I rely on collectors to obtain my specimens for me or look for specimens from old collections or at fairs. Not many here would not buy butterflies from other sources, or worry that they did not collect them themselves. I spend every moment of my free time in the field in Britain looking at our fascinating lepidoptera, but now because I do not now collect British only take a camera. I am always learning. As for people buying specimens being regarded as stamp book collectors, it might depend on what you mean. Butterfly collecting, whether or not we capture a specimen ourselves, can be an absorbing hobby. Your interest can go far beyond the specimen. Who discovered the species, about the original collector, the habitat, the life history and biology, the list is endless. If I ever make it to New Guinea, I would make good use of a net. I do admire those collectors of the rough tough places of the earth and many many thanks them.

[cabintom]

May 20, 2014 7:17:58 GMT -8 jshuey said:

These guys (and others) are all about exciting field work in exotic places and I love hearing what they have to say. How do we create the next generation of these guys? These guys and others who swing nets in the field are going to excite the next generation of collectors. And you can have a blast in not-so-exotic places as well -- I had a hell of a day in northwestern Indiana yesterday. I helped set up blacklight traps and a small mammal trap grid across a site, as well as watched-out for fairly rare skippers

John, first off, thank you for the kind words.

I feel like I'm still very much a beginner lepidopterist/entomologist... but I'm actively seeking to learn and improve... regardless I feel it's important to share what I do know, because (I believe) that plays a big part in building others' interest or keeping them interested in the hobby. For example, today I watched as a female Junonia sophia fluttered around my lawn, landing here and there, laying eggs. I had the idea that it would be interesting to rear the larva and observe the entirety of the life cycle. (Honestly, I don't think the idea would have crossed my mind if I hadn't read about rearing here on insectnet.) Problem was, I could never get close enough to pickout the exact blade of grass she was laying the eggs on, so I wasn't able to find any... finally, I gave up, netted the butterfly and put it in a largish jar with grass I ripped out of the lawn. Now, I have no clue whether she'll lay eggs in there... if she doesn't, I might give up on the idea... and if I was a less passionate person (with regards to insects) I might just give up on rearing butterflies for good. Mind you, if I were to read an account on the topic of encouraging a captive specimen to lay her eggs, I would probably be able to overcome my current hurdle and would find myself that much deeper in the hobby.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that if we do the difficult thing of proactively sharing our knowledge (or diligently answering questions to which we have some sort of answer), not only are we benefiting our colleagues, we're also mentoring and inspiring the "newbies."

Tom

[nomihoudai]

many of the serious collectors seem to be 50+ and upwards

Please define what you mean by "serious".

[nomad]

May 20, 2014 23:42:02 GMT -8 nomihoudai said:

many of the serious collectors seem to be 50+ and upwards

Please define what you mean by "serious".

Those that take the hobby seriously, I am sure there are many younger collectors who do, such as yourself