On Collections and their Ethical Implications

We were standing along the Missouri River on a sandy bank as I pled with another graduate student, “Please don’t kill this toad”. I whispered to the unknowing soul, a Woodhouse’s toad, that I would run off with her before he got a chance to inject her and stick her lifeless body in a bag. I felt a little thrill of victory as he relented, saying that they already had some adults from this site of that species this year. Although I couldn’t save the hundreds that were already in jars, I could save this one.

Toads hold a dear place in my heart. They are not uncommon or prized for unique features by most. But as I have come into close contact with them for my research, a slow and steady connection with them has grown within me. Their postures are regal and standoffish. Their faces are grumpy and bitter. They are awkward and slow and therefore easy to catch compared to their ranid cousins. Although many may consider them unexceptional, I am entranced by toads. The other graduate student, the amphibian sandman of sorts, values toads too. His motivation was to collect the toad and the valuable data contained within the animal to put into a collection.

As I’ve been reading the first half of Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction, I have been considering the value and the ethical nature of collecting organisms for collections. Collections hold a lot of value. Each organism contains data that may be analyzed with proper training to answer questions about our world and how it works. They tell a story of what once was. The promise of collections is that we may uncover patterns that change through time or come with new eyes and knowledge of current understanding to look at the historical data preserved within these specimens. And from an experimental design perspective, the more replicates, the more jars, the more specimens, the better. But from a spiritual perspective, it is gut wrenching to see jars and jars of your favorite animal, eyes dulled by formalin and ethanol, sitting on a shelf in a lab.

 I had a similar feeling thinking about “the original penguin”, the great auk while reading this week. As Kolbert relates what the last moments of the auk’s species was like I am reminded of toads. The great auk seems to share traits with my dear toads, both are unfit to travel with expedience on land. The auks see the humans coming, try to make a run for it, but are readily overtaken by the humans, and conked on their heads, and taken away, their lone egg left to die without parental care. Those auks have ended up on display, one of which is forgotten in a basement as an outcome of bureaucracy. I wonder if this is the fate for many museum specimens. They are collected at times with passion and with promise. Potentially, the data these museum specimen hold will answer some important question, yet to be conceived. However, a wise advisor once told me not to collect data unless you had a specific plan for it. There is also a potential that these specimens go unused and sit in a dark cabinet until their skins flake and their labels fade. Organisms of all kinds are under threat in the Anthropocene. Might it be better to not add an addition stress onto these organisms with collections?