4 ms·

A Lizard Lost at Sea Makes Its Return

37 points by anthotny 9y ago

dmix 9y ago
> Last month, citing incomplete documentation, Australian customs officials incinerated six holotypes on loan from Paris—all daisies, a few from the late eighteenth century. The only thing worse than losing your precious holotype specimen in a sinking ship is when they are purposefully destroyed thanks to beurcratic incompetence. Edit: found the backstory about the incenerated daises https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/world/australia/rare-plants-destroyed.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/world/australia/rare-plan...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mmjaa 9y ago
  Actually, the worse circumstance is when you let in a couple of flowers, and lose your local species as a result. Australia has very good reasons for these kinds of laws.
  - have_faith 9y ago
    It's interesting to think about at what point do you let in new species? What is the end-goal? to preserve Australis as-is perpetually forever? No opinion either way, just interesting to think about. We have a bad history as custodians of the environment.
    - nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago
      Not allowing species from outside the continent doesn't mean everything stays "as is". The whole eco-system there is evolving (like at any other place) and will take its own course. They customs folk are only trying to ensure no one brings a (potentially) disruptive element into the mix. There have been instances of invasive species wiping out local species. I'll leave it to you to find examples using your favourite search engine.
    - clouddrover 9y ago
      > What is the end-goal? To slow the rate of extinction. Saving some is better than saving none: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
- jessaustin 9y ago
  In Australia's defense, if an imported item is "priceless and irreplaceable", maybe one can't put that on the form, but it's certainly possible not to estimate the value at "$2".
  - dmix 9y ago
    Yes, it was incompetence by the Paris university as well as potentially the customs rules and whoever was the intended recipient in Australia. Any one of those could have handled this better. Customs waited 76 days before destroying it and contacted them twice requesting more information, so they aren't totally at fault. Either the customs policy of incineration wasn't made obvious to people shipping/receiving the products or the Aussie researcher neglected to tell the Paris branch. The most obvious error here is that the Paris school didn't identify the real value of the item in the paperwork (maybe to avoid import taxes?). This has many implications when you send a valuable item through the mail. Including insurance coverage.
    - seszett 9y ago
      The article does say, though: > “The problem is that we were warned of nothing,” Mr. Guiraud said. The museum sent specimens from the Lagenophora family, which includes daisies, and was notified that a quarantine document was missing. “We filled it out and sent it,” Mr. Guiraud said, adding that the paperwork was in order. Two weeks later, the museum learned the specimens had been destroyed. So it's not completely obvious where the fault was. Having some experience with French administration though, they're probably faulty in at least some part. Also, it's not really just "a Paris school" but the oldest Natural History museum in the world with one of the largest collections (I've actually worked and collected specimens for them, too). So they do have some experience in sharing and handling their collections, which is why I don't think they can be entirely at fault there.

37 points by anthotny 9y ago

dmix 9y ago

> Last month, citing incomplete documentation, Australian customs officials incinerated six holotypes on loan from Paris—all daisies, a few from the late eighteenth century. The only thing worse than losing your precious holotype specimen in a sinking ship is when they are purposefully destroyed thanks to beurcratic incompetence. Edit: found the backstory about the incenerated daises https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/world/australia/rare-plants-destroyed.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/world/australia/rare-plan...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
mmjaa 9y ago
Actually, the worse circumstance is when you let in a couple of flowers, and lose your local species as a result. Australia has very good reasons for these kinds of laws.
- have_faith 9y ago
  It's interesting to think about at what point do you let in new species? What is the end-goal? to preserve Australis as-is perpetually forever? No opinion either way, just interesting to think about. We have a bad history as custodians of the environment.
  - nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago
    Not allowing species from outside the continent doesn't mean everything stays "as is". The whole eco-system there is evolving (like at any other place) and will take its own course. They customs folk are only trying to ensure no one brings a (potentially) disruptive element into the mix. There have been instances of invasive species wiping out local species. I'll leave it to you to find examples using your favourite search engine.
  - clouddrover 9y ago
    > What is the end-goal? To slow the rate of extinction. Saving some is better than saving none: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
jessaustin 9y ago
In Australia's defense, if an imported item is "priceless and irreplaceable", maybe one can't put that on the form, but it's certainly possible not to estimate the value at "$2".
- dmix 9y ago
  Yes, it was incompetence by the Paris university as well as potentially the customs rules and whoever was the intended recipient in Australia. Any one of those could have handled this better. Customs waited 76 days before destroying it and contacted them twice requesting more information, so they aren't totally at fault. Either the customs policy of incineration wasn't made obvious to people shipping/receiving the products or the Aussie researcher neglected to tell the Paris branch. The most obvious error here is that the Paris school didn't identify the real value of the item in the paperwork (maybe to avoid import taxes?). This has many implications when you send a valuable item through the mail. Including insurance coverage.
  - seszett 9y ago
    The article does say, though: > “The problem is that we were warned of nothing,” Mr. Guiraud said. The museum sent specimens from the Lagenophora family, which includes daisies, and was notified that a quarantine document was missing. “We filled it out and sent it,” Mr. Guiraud said, adding that the paperwork was in order. Two weeks later, the museum learned the specimens had been destroyed. So it's not completely obvious where the fault was. Having some experience with French administration though, they're probably faulty in at least some part. Also, it's not really just "a Paris school" but the oldest Natural History museum in the world with one of the largest collections (I've actually worked and collected specimens for them, too). So they do have some experience in sharing and handling their collections, which is why I don't think they can be entirely at fault there.