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Message: <blockquote data-quote="George Sangster" data-source="post: 3498140" data-attributes="member: 43829">This is a good question. Needless to say, I think those who collect birds should also be able to defend their practice for lay people, not just for fellow scientists. My answer: We are not blasting thousands of birds out of the sky. We are selectively collecting birds to help us understand their identity, their relationships, their adaptations and their biology. Specimens may reveal us important things which realistically cannot be learned from other types of data. We will not collect any birds if we know this could endanger the continued existence of the species or population. The difference with the Maltese hunters is that (i) we do not enjoy killing birds, (ii) we respect local and international laws, (iii) we collect only a small number per species and only from species that are not well-represented in museums, (iv) we do not consume the birds but place the specimens in a museum where they can be examined by future generations of scientists, and (v) we collect a lot of other data with the specimen.</blockquote>