Bioethics in entomology

I don't mind killing insects for scientific and collectible purposes, as long as the latter doesn't take the ugly form of beating up all the small fauna. In general, the approach is-think about it, and then throw it in the stain.
I always act more like an insect hunter than an entomologist, and the real topic is not the number of insects caught, but the method of killing. Professional entomologist and amateur-the scale of the collection is not comparable: some faunal cross-section of the entire area and catching cute species for your own collection.

Continuing the discussion with Ripper
, the mind, you see, as well as ideas about morality, is also a thing for everyone. And your own somehow always takes priority . So, the conversation about the dispute between morality and reason is somewhat vague.
Ethics in general, in my understanding, is a voluntary limitation of one's own means of achieving some goal. It is strange to expect a transition from effective traps to less effective ones on the part of a scientist. But on the part of the collector - here is a subtle matter. After all, you can buy butterflies and beetles, and fish, for example, can be obtained with dynamite.

According to the degree of "humanity", I would put it like this: stain, injection, compression, temperature. Pinning - I mean the case when the insect dies almost immediately. But in general, I agree with Helen - the method of killing is more important for the killer.

On the question of total destruction of small fauna.
We have an unwritten rule at the institute: if an animal has died, it must serve science. Even if you hit someone by accident-you can't throw them, you need to fix them. However, we do not have a question of storing and using secondary mining: there is a museum, and the museum has specialists of any profile.
However, who prevents an amateur from giving away what is superfluous and unnecessary for the collection to the same museum? Unfortunately, people often act differently: they simply throw out the "minus" - both in the field and at home (when they replace it in the collection with a better copy).
Speaking of birds, if one of the fans has nowhere to put the "minus" and "duplicates" - I can pick them up and attach them. Of course, if they are labeled.

quot [We have an unwritten rule at the institute: if an animal has died, it must serve science. Even if you hit someone by accident-you can't throw them, you need to fix them].
That's great!
In the West, it seems, experiments with animals are now problematic. Despite even the obvious positive effect of drug testing, for example. The position of the amateur collector is generally quite uncertain. Apparently, the long-awaited development of natural ethics is not based on an intelligent understanding of the biology of insects. Complete ban on trapping! - commercial, for species with a narrow range (Ferghana draughtsman)? - I agree, but emotions are so gushing, especially from the Red Books.

I wonder how much trapping can damage the local insect population in general? Well, let's say, without any hyper -, ultra-and mega traps.

I remembered a couple of things about bioethics. In the Caucasus, I once met a subject-so he first filled coffee cans with captured bull-moustaches, and in the evening he sorted them, and simply threw away the uninteresting types. I was so hurt! I didn't take Shamil's Tonkworm because I was afraid of spoiling it in my mountain troika, and he's such a...
And a couple of years ago, on the Iron Gate Lane in the Kolvitsky tundra, I found a ground beetle trap left by someone. The entire two-liter bottle was almost completely filled with spoiled beetles (some kind of glabratus, in my opinion)!

Of course, it is necessary to kill wisely, not to overdo it! In fact, they kill too many people, even if they leave them on mattresses or even in banks, and then to museums, institutes, acquaintances, if that's the case..

I wonder how much trapping can damage the local insect population in general? Well, let's say, without any hyper -, ultra-and mega traps.

In fact, there is not a single proven case of serious damage caused by trapping. Economic activity in all its forms is much more dangerous.
But I can assume that if you regularly select fresh adults from a micro-population in commercial volumes, then in the end the population will stall.

This post was edited by Helene - 04/21/2006 15: 08

I am very touched when people who are far from biology talk about inhumane treatment of animals (including insects) (this does not apply to respected forum participants). Their argument is pathetic. I usually answer - "sorry" at the bee in the ass...., And then ask the question - Do you think about humanism and pity killing mosquitoes, horseflies, crushing spiders.. with a cry of " Ugh abomination!" Yes, and insectivorous animals, eating do not anesthetize the victim. We had a precedent when, during the parasitological autopsy of a toad, a drooling, drugged large pine weevil emerged from the gastric food lump. That was the squeal...
And a professional, of course, SHOULD collect the material and use it for scientific purposes 100%. If you can't learn it yourself, give it to a professional. And the collected collections (including cotton wool) after studying, if it is impossible to store them for a long time at home or in the organization, should be handed over to large institutes (ZIN; ZMMSU and others). And then you listen to the defense, the material is tens of thousands of copies.. If you ask where it is stored, it turns out that it was thrown away or eaten by leatherworms, etc. But from this "spent" material, with a SCIENTIFIC approach, you can still get so much information...
So let's change UNNECESSARY material, and maybe we'll ruin the living creatures less and "move" science.
And, of course, if you use some long-term traps (soil, etc.), in the mass attracting insects, YOU NEED to remove them after research. Although, in an ordinary beer bottle in the forest, so many beetles are stuffed and die, and there are much more of them in our forests than Barber's traps, light traps and window traps combined.

Elizar, respect!
Golden words!
I will add my own five kopecks for amateur collectors: label everything that is taken from nature! Because it often happens that an amateur collection suddenly turns out to be, for example, an interesting faunal find. And the specifics (the exact place and time of collection) a person simply can not remember. Even if you put them in frames-write on the back of the frame!

And here is another problem of responsibility, which few people think about-concerns breeders, including insectarium lovers. In no case should we allow an escape from the culture. There are plenty of examples of the negative consequences of not caring - from the unpaired silkworm in North America to the rattan fish in Europe. Even tropical species can sometimes turn out to be unexpectedly hardy and take root. In the north of the United States, some kind of (I don't remember exactly) saturnia - however, everything turned out quite innocuously there, it did not become a malicious pest.
And the introduction or purposeful introduction of insects of local species, but from non-native populations, is irreparable harm to science. Now the genetic direction in entomology is developing. One day geneticists will want to study a certain species - and the gene pool of the subject of study is disrupted, because twenty years ago some "green" do-gooder supported the population of a rare species by releasing insects brought from the other end of the country.

Recently I visited the Department of Entomology. The impression, to put it mildly, is depressing. You can't call hundreds of boxes filled with half - eaten insects anything but "substandard material".

That's for sure! The material is often not followed at all! Many unique items are eaten by skin eaters, and the answer is-Yes? This is bad - It should be processed - But what can you do.. etc. But I can't see any cases. And they don't spread insects at all. I would like to do all this, and not give the same!

In fact, if you really touch on environmental issues, then the contribution of both pros and amateurs is negligible, while rare species really suffer from trapping for purely commercial purposes (there are more examples than it seems - almost all large beetles, rare sailboats). And this is really immoral, because science does not get anything from this, all the most valuable material goes to the decor. What matters here is not how they kill, but what they kill at all.
As for killing in scientific / amateur gatherings, in fact, effective and fast methods are the most humane - stain, or traps with a koservator, etc. There are some problems with the availability of the necessary substances, but here a person needs to decide whether he needs it at all. If necessary, then the obligation to get what he needs should be perceived as part of the hobby itself.

it is really immoral, because science does not get anything from this, all the most valuable material goes to the decor.

IMHO commercial collection of insects for collections is the same as fur farming. Both are the breeding of living creatures in nature for the sake of"decoration". Ideally, the solution to the problem is to leave nature alone and learn how to raise animals on farms (even animals, even butterflies and beetles). In fact, it is difficult to breed insects, so poachers will continue to poach them.
You can try to ban the sale of insects, generally collecting without a business trip from a scientific organization, amateur collections... Antonova wanted to do about this with the best intentions, but it turned out only that any youngster with a net automatically turned out to be an intruder. And our non-professional science is and will continue to be supported in the foreseeable future by the enthusiasm of freelancers and just amateurs - such as our Nilson. If such people are rejected - who will collect something?! Oats are expensive now, and organizing large-scale monitoring by official institute expeditions is too expensive...
And if you try to ban only the "bad guys" - those collectors for whom it is only important that the desired species is in the collection at all costs (and there, even if it is extinct, it will only become more expensive)... Well, yes, such people are disgusting. But how (technically) do you "separate aries from goats"?
In general, the problem is not so clear. And it is probably solved only through increasing the culture of collectors. In order to create such a stereotype of perception in their community (more business than biological): if any Hiroshima-san has compiled his own rich collection by barbaric destruction of rare species by the forces of dark local collectors, he is not a successful collector, but a predator and thief,and his collection is considered stolen.
And another thing that should be implemented and advertised-artificial insects, which were discussed in the next topic. You can also collect them. And even more so to use in the design: they will not fade, the leather eater will not eat...

I just remembered a visit from a Finnish entomologist who specializes in water beetles. He had such a method of catching the light: in a jar of alcohol, he shot everything from the screen-for himself – for colleagues, for future Finnish specialists. At the same time, he once mentioned that he does not collect so much in Finland. So much for the professional.

However, the most unpleasant "vandalism" was this: the Moscow amateur lepidopterologist really needed the eggs of some butterflies that live high in the crowns. I paid a friend from the fire service, and he organized the cutting of a fire protection strip in the specified place...

It makes no sense for sellers to catch rare species, and others, in huge quantities, because once they have done this, they understand that when they have caught a lot, the price immediately drops sharply.. You have to either catch little by little, or hide the catch, and it's not so easy to hide (at my expense).
Small populations can be destroyed at once by a collector if he goes after a rare species that only flies a little, and starts chasing wildly until he catches everyone within his reach.

"It makes no sense for sellers to catch rare species"
Caught a lot, but sells only a part, lets the rest exchange or holds for the time being. I haven't seen a single entomologist-collector who would let go of a rare species just because he has already collected about 10 specimens.
However, I do not know of any cases when collectors destroyed any kind of insect. Do you have any?

Elementary. Consider Queen Alexandra's ornithopter. Or some morpids. The first one was actually destroyed, the second ones were saved only by luck.

Juglans:
You haven't seen me since half a year ago
Collectors naturally won't miss it, but sellers will.. Also probably, although who knows. If they do not have the opportunity to sell more, then they may not be caught. I didn't know much about their sellout stuff

The species may not have been destroyed (with their own hands), but the number of waters was reduced for sure.. Well, in my encyclopedia they wrote that one species has already disappeared (from barbels, like xuthrus some), only a few specimens remain. in collections..

I've already spoken out about my attitude to mass fishing...
It seems to me that the main danger is cases when the effect of the action is not obvious, distant in time, etc. If only every pyromaniac that burned half of the European Russian Federation this spring had looked at the charred insects and amphibians... So when you put on a khabash T-shirt, you don't think that it's from the cotton fields, soaked through with toxic chemicals and covered with dead entomofauna. Entomologist (if he is a more or less normal person) at least he is directly involved in the killing process and feels that he is killing. Here you can hope at least for squeamishness, or something, for innate mechanisms. I feel so damned sorry when I can't straighten a butterfly - it turns out that I didn't kill it for nothing. And to drive a lawn mower and grind a thousand tracks - no one thinks about it, because they don't see the results.
Similar mechanisms work for any murder, war, or hunting. Try to kill a rabbit or partridge with your hands-it's morally difficult, but it's easier to shoot, it's even easier to sign a stupid law...

I just remembered a visit from a Finnish entomologist who specializes in water beetles. He had such a method of catching the light: in a jar of alcohol, he shot everything from the screen-for himself – for colleagues, for future Finnish specialists. At the same time, he once mentioned that he does not collect so much in Finland. So much for the professional.

You may have misunderstood Finn. In Finland, entomology is very developed, everything is caught and overfished, as, according to you, you have in Primorye. What's the point of catching everything if the funds have it? And on a long-distance expedition, yes, we catch "for ourselves and for that guy", because not everyone will be able to go, but everyone is interested...

It makes no sense for sellers to catch rare species, and others, in huge quantities, because once they have done this, they understand that when they have caught a lot, the price immediately drops sharply.. You have to either catch little by little, or hide the catch, and it's not so easy to hide (at my expense).

They" hide " calmly, because they have a different attitude-purely utilitarian, as to the product. I am more or less aware of how they work: colleagues in Bishkek who had to make contact with such people told me. There is, for example, a high-altitude species that is physically difficult to get: if they break through, they catch it until they catch everything that has been hatched for today. And then exactly what they hold back, so as not to lower the price. By the way, they can very easily cheat with labels: put the date and place that is more profitable. Example: there is the same subspecies of parnassius in the Altai and Sayan Mountains. But in the Saiyan Mountains it is more difficult to get it, and the Saiyan ones are more valued by collectors. The huckster calmly passes off the Altai for the Sayan.
And from the point of view of bioethics, the most disgusting thing is that the dealers do not climb the mountains themselves, but hire profane collectors. And they catch kilograms of everything in a row. And then the huckster sorts the material: banals and damaged insects are simply thrown out.
I know a positive example of a trader (as opposed to a huckster) - Sergey Toropov from Bishkek. Here he has long made a bet on eating out of eggs. And who just did not spread! Among other things, he makes a scientific contribution to the study of preimaginals. And he doesn't throw out the" minus", but gives it to museums (he also gave it to us )

But in the same Japan, for such a method of fishing, any entomologist will face a large fine and a dirty reputation. YOU can NOT catch everything indiscriminately-collect what you and your colleagues need. After all, we have already written that collections (including European ones) are littered with mountains of raw materials. It turns out what you wrote about:
"And then the huckster sorts the material: banals and damaged insects are simply thrown away." - only not hucksters, but specialists, and it turns out that 90% of the material has no value, these are banal species.

But in the same Japan, for such a method of fishing, any entomologist will face a large fine and a dirty reputation. YOU can NOT catch everything indiscriminately-collect what you and your colleagues need. After all, we have already written that collections (including European ones) are littered with mountains of raw materials. It turns out what you wrote about:
"And then the huckster sorts the material: banals and damaged insects are simply thrown away." - only not hucksters, but specialists, and it turns out that 90% of the material has no value, these are banal species.

Raw cotton wool material and waste are far from the same thing, and it's not really up to you to explain it. Not now, but in the future, maybe they will-and they will look for material with lanterns. And platitudes, too. I have one friend who is engaged in biometrics - so he needs large series of the same species, and you can beat them (there would be a certain cell of the wing in which he considers the pollen density). Geneticists need some banals (i.e. cosmopolitan species) from different parts of the range for comparative analysis... Of course, I do not urge you to rest on collecting everything in the world, but ignoring "not your own groups" is somehow not patriotic to the institute and not friendly to colleagues

So, hello to everyone in this thread.

I read your posts and I want to say the following: M. B. indeed, it is not proven that trapping harms the population, but we know that removing its best representatives from the population (and they catch just the largest and most beautiful) will cause damage to any population. And in general-and there were such studies. Or is the opposite proven? If we take into account that a priori any human activity can be dangerous for populations, if the opposite is not proven?

However, I would like to touch not on the issues of trapping in principle, but on some of its limitations.
For example, when it comes to students in practice. All students of biology, not only zoologists, but also microbes, are trained in the field of zoology at Kruop University. physiologists, botanists, etc. They create collections in practice, which then go to the trash. The question is whether non-zoologists need to collect a personal collection. Or you can limit yourself to one per group, for example? Finally, it is in such collections that the Red Books fall. For the reason that students starve everything in a row. Traps are also often not taken out of the ground. They put beetles on the needle without dying in the stain. I personally think that the main harm is not that specific insects die, but that in the first year biologists receive such a lesson - that insects are material. But they are also alive. Someone in previous posts correctly said - before you starve - you need to think about whether it is necessary. it is necessary to assess the benefits and harms of killing an insect during harvesting. If we are talking about important and serious work - one approach, and if for practice at microbes, then never do it-maybe not worth it?

In other words, it is primarily a question of ethics. Returning to Dr. Mengele, this is also not proven, but it seems that those who are cruel to animals often behave the same way with people?

I read your posts and I want to say the following: M. B. indeed, it is not proven that trapping harms the population, but we know that removing its best representatives from the population (and they catch just the largest and most beautiful) will cause damage to any population. And in general-and there were such studies. Or is the opposite proven? If we take into account that a priori any human activity can be dangerous for populations, if the opposite is not proven?

About harm to populations-IMHO in the topic everything is quite detailed.
Insects are at the very beginning of the food chain, the natural waste at all stages is huge, so that a person in normal conditions can not compete with natural enemies, diseases and other natural factors. What the catcher catches is damage within the statistical margin of error.
At the same time, there are special cases on both sides: the insect is a depressed narrow - locality species, and the human is a commercial collector who selects hundreds of fresh imagos (that is, those that passed natural selection in the early stages of development and did not have time to perform the function of reproduction). If commercial trappers graze on a local spot for years, they can really deplete the population.
Still, the main thing that insects should be protected from is human economic activity, which leads to the simultaneous destruction or gradual degradation of the biotope. Without food plants, without the habitat to which they are adapted, insects cannot exist. Therefore, it is necessary to protect them only together with the entire biocenosis, the ban on trapping will not solve any problems.

Of course, such generalizations are not always reliable, but they are quite common. I agree with you on almost everything - you need to organize the process wisely.

Let me return to the aimlessness of murder. Exactly, when a collection goes to the bucket (and everyone sees it), then those who collect it have the opinion that they collected the collection not for the collection, but for the process itself (get a screenshot).

For example, takyo fact - at one festival of physiologists, among others, a competition was organized - who will prepare the neuromuscular preparation of a frog faster. We all did it once. But it's one thing when this process takes place for science, and another-when the whole hall laughs, looking at how two men chop up the legs of a dead frog .for fun's sake. It's not entomology, of course, but it's close. The problem is that not everyone feels the line that separates research from murder.

Let me return to the aimlessness of murder. Exactly, when a collection goes to the bucket (and everyone sees it), then those who collect it have the opinion that they collected the collection not for the collection, but for the process itself (get a screenshot).

The process of getting credit is not the process of tearing off the legs of a beetle or the tail of a cat. Don't you understand the difference?
What you have described teaches not cruelty, but indifference, "serving the number" - just to "push" the job. Which in itself is very bad.
In general, fees in the garbage bucket are bad from all sides

It would be interesting to see such a discussion in a hundred years or so. Maybe by this time killing insects will be perceived as murder. IMHO, we are already talking here rather not about the fact of murder as such, but about the justification of the means by the goal. It's not even a question of how much populations are affected, but the attitude to the very fact of killing. Many States consider themselves entitled to take a person's life for a crime. For Mengele, sending a hundred gypsies to the gas chamber was like popping a couple of flies (by the way, such people are usually very fond of their relatives, dogs, cats, parishioners of their own church) - this was also human material. The existence of man itself implies the killing of other species. Rather, we need to talk about the development of the ethics of nature and the limits of such ethics. Today, scientific results, even the most modest ones, seem to fully justify placing beetles in the stain.

For Mengele, sending a hundred gypsies to the gas chamber was like popping a couple of flies (by the way, such people are usually very fond of their relatives, dogs, cats, parishioners of their own church) - this was also human material.

Well, are you going there too? Well, you can not put an equal sign between an animal and a person! If you follow your logic, then the same pharmacology should be closed altogether (since in vitro experiments will never completely replace in vivo experiments).
As you said correctly,

To Helen
Wow, it's a slippery theme! Animal rights... The problem is that it is difficult to distinguish between human and animal rights. On the one hand - vivisection and other Cartesianism, on the other-very green, incense and Buddhist monks.
In general, I agree with posts 1 and 2.

To Helen The process of getting credit is not the process of tearing off the legs of a beetle or the tail of a cat. Don't you understand the difference?
What you have described teaches not cruelty, but indifference, "serving the number" - just to "push" the job. Which in itself is very bad.

I understand. Are you sure that everyone else understands it too?

Another point - and why do they collect collections at all? Basically. I'm not sure of course, but it seems to me that many of the collections are collected not for science, but to satisfy the collector's excitement. Are there any professional restrictions on collecting such collections?

Finally, why does entomology study insects in general? What are the global goals?

PS Sorry for possibly profane questions, I really don't know this and really wonder.

To Tarxan
I am afraid that any restriction of amateur fees will have a negative result. And then, who should be allowed to collect and who should not? I am sure that I, as an amateur, will only be left with mosquitoes in this case
We should rather follow the path of enlightenment, as they do in the West. Let them then take more pictures than they catch, if the first one gives the same pleasure.
For me, catching insects is always a bit of a science, a bit of a hunt. If we talk about real protection, then IMHO it is necessary to educate. The killing of insects is constant and inevitable, and the attitude to this fact is your own ideas about what is good and what is bad. The first step towards real protection that ensures the coexistence of our species is not to limit the catch, but to start the perception of insects as an important and full - fledged part of the ecosystem by the whole society - scientists, physicists, collective farm chairmen, students...
Here is a link to the text, the meaning of which to some extent reflects my position http://entomolog.narod.ru/zakon_natural.html

You can also add, however, this does not apply exactly to entomologists. For engineers, electronics engineers, and physicists, insects are a very interesting object. I myself even had the idea to somehow adjust the life support system, using a termite garden as a basis . It's funny that there was a whole group at Harrow's Comet that studied the Namib blackbirds to create fog-trapping shields.

The topic has again moved into the analysis of means and practical goals. After all, even when we save a certain species or population , we save a certain number of insects for the sake of solving subsequent practical problems of humanity. Above, Helene, you wrote

Where it was - when you want to study something alive, the first thing you do is cut it, but there is no life in it anymore...

Are there any alternative methods? for example, if I'm not mistaken, the same monitoring can be carried out without killing insects. for example, collect them from traps, identify them and release them (primitivino but in this spirit). For example, if you need to determine the species composition - a scale is taken, DNA is extracted from it, then it's a matter of technique. everyone is alive, the accuracy is 100%, and everyone is happy. Perhaps, now there are no such methods and technical capabilities. But this is a matter of progress. Do entomologists have a desire for such a path? At least in principle? For example, in many determinants, the ways to determine them are as follows: look at certain organs under the melkoscope (i.e., the animal must be killed a priori in order to determine it) But you can also identify it from a photo, for example. For example-a guide for amateurs - I caught a bug, identified it using this guide (at least up to the family-this is enough for an amateur) - and released it. Then there would be a trend.

As for the purposes of entomology, I just wanted to know about its practical application, and that entomology itself is interesting is indisputable, as indeed zoology in general is. and not only biologists.

But there are bird watchers, and why not watch the insects instead of drying them? Here is an example - I kept ground beetles at home that fell into holes closer to winter. I didn't know if they could survive if I just let them out. And kept it at home. They lived until March. Now I'm not sure if I did it right. M. B. They should have just been released.

2Dracus:
Apparently, we somehow understand anthropocentrism differently.. I always thought so. that anthropocentrism is a position in the style of the famous aphorism of Turgenev Bazarov "Nature is not a temple, but a workshop, and man is a worker in it". That is, a person and his needs are important, and nature must be preserved to the extent that it is necessary again to meet the human needs for clean air, recreation, etc.That is, anthropocentrism is a complete rejection of the intrinsic value of both animals and biocenoses in general. And from this point of view, it is silly to worry about building/plowing/planting forests on the site of the steppes near Moscow: why, black soil should yield crops, and not "overgrown with weeds", people need dachas with good fertile plots for vegetable gardens, if you leave the land undeveloped and untilled-so for recreation, and it is more pleasant to relax under trees, and not in an open field... Such utilitarianism is, to put it mildly, unpleasant to me, and in this sense I am not an anthropocentric person. And the sign of equality between man and animal is IMHO the reverse side of the coin, i.e., if you want, "zoocentrism". Logically, it leads to perversions like veganism or the struggle for the rights of stray dogs in Moscow (who doesn't know - they have already devoured all the small fauna in forest parks and are finishing up in Losiny Ostrov).
The difference in human and animal rights is explained very simply: humans, unlike animals, have what Christians call a soul, and atheists call a mind. This makes each individual unique, and the destruction of any individual is a crime (remember- "don't ask for whom the bell tolls"?). And in nature, there is a natural priority of preserving the species over the preservation of the individual. For the conservation of the species, it doesn't matter who killed the beetle - a person or a bird, and such an anthropogenic impact is really no different from natural.
Euthanasia is just a" good death " in literal translation, i.e. killing in the most painless way possible. If you remember this word about euthanasia of the terminally ill. then this is a special case.
As for treating the material as inanimate. I don't know how this is possible. We're not robots. I imagined for a moment a complete shutdown of the emotional attitude to my butterflies - it turned out something like what Tarxan described: the only possible view of a living insect is "material for science disappears" And I can just watch butterflies with pleasure, and rejoice at the uselessness of catching them (like apollons in the Ulyanovsk region - it was overcast, and they were hanging out in full bloom. and I stroked their backs). And it's a pity they happen when you need to catch them. It is still unpleasant to remember night fishing in the Orenburg region, when hebe bears (they are heavy, flew poorly)-funny, touching, clumsy creatures - came to our screen on the grass... and we killed them like the last goblins, because the institute needed a series of Such moral losses we pay for our scientific curiosity. The ratio of goals and means, yes, it is...

2Tarxan
Alternative methods exist, but not always. Orthopterologists identify their animals by their voices - just like bird watchers. But most insects are silent... Count live insects based on pictures... Well, first of all, not everything is determined by the pictures. There are many species that differ only in the laboratory - that is, you need to kill a priori, as you said. Also, can you imagine the amount of nightly collection in the trap? These are hundreds or even thousands of copies. And they need to be counted at least alive, and even separate the scales for DNA analysis?! No, alas, it is unrealistic...
Admittedly, non-lethal methods of identification and accounting now exist only for vertebrae (and even then not for all-there are genera of birds that are not defined in the field). On the other hand, the vertebrae and the scale of numbers are different, the damage to populations by collecting is more real... M. B. sovremennem will come up with something for insects after all... I'd love to. But so far, I don't even see any prospects.

2Tarxan:
>For example, if you need to determine the species composition - a scale is taken
, > DNA is extracted from it, then it's a matter of technique. everyone is alive, the accuracy is 100%, and everyone is happy. Perhaps now
>there are no such methods and technical capabilities. But this is a matter of progress. Do
>entomologists have a desire for such a path? At least in principle?

Unfortunately, first of all, this is a very expensive way. Second, it requires a huge publicly available database of DNA samples. How do you imagine defining species even in a city far from such a bank? And if in the field? Third, you will also need technical qualifications... And creating such a database, taking into account the fact that there are several million insect species in the world alone, would be a great task for the world entomology community. Only here its implementation would stretch for several decades. Fourth, capture even for the purpose of taking a DNA sample is an event that is far from neutral for an animal. Among insects, by the way, there are a lot of tender ones...

No, I'm certainly not against sparing accounting methods, if all these difficulties are overcome. Just let's be realistic.
2Helene: As for counting straight-winged birds by voice , I hope to try them out this summer as part of my students ' coursework preparation. Although it is obvious that you will have to pay for" humanity " - for example, a much greater dependence on weather conditions.