Grace+Peel+Audubon+Meeting+Water+Test

At this Audubon meeting on May 8th at the NC Science Museum, Dr. Brian L Stuart (the Curator of Herpetology at the NC Science Museum) spoke about his experience with animal conservation. Mr. Stuart told a story about how he described a species of Newt in Laos to //Science,// and how illegal animal traders used his description to guide them in searching for the Newts to capture and then sell them to consumers. Stuart's story was very interesting as well as heartbreaking, as he set out to describe the Newt he discovered to make the scientific community aware of what he thought was an amazing, beautiful creature, but as an indirect result of his findings, the species became endangered because of the illegal animal trade.

His experience brought light to a common trend across the globe of animal traders capturing endangered organisms and selling them through the black market. Stuart was able to find several other scientists who had experienced the same thing: criminals using their scientific descriptions to locate and catch these animals, eventually leading to endangerment and in some cases, extinction.

Stuart wrapped up his lecture by detailing current efforts to conserve endangered animals like the Lao Newt. Currently, scientists are trying to find ways to limit access to scientific descriptions like Stuart's to the general public in a way that legitimate scientists can still access these descriptions. This is somewhat problematic, because if the public does not have access to information about previously unknown species, it is hard for governments and environmental agencies to protect them.

I found this issue extremely pertinent to the material we have learned about in APES this year. The pressing issue of conserving endangered species is extremely important for more people to become aware of, and the issue of how to take action to prevent endangered species from becoming extinct is one of the most complex environmental issues that environmental sciences are trying to help fix at the present time. Dr. Stuart's lecture was extremely interesting, and helped me to put issues I have learned about in APES this year into a real-life context.