Eggs at Customs (fwd)

[Rich Graves]

On Mon, 15 Jan 1996, Timothy C. May wrote:

> At 11:36 PM 1/15/96, Lindsay Haisley wrote:
> >There has (fortunately!) been a big crackdown recently on the illegal pet
> >bird import trade, something akin to the slave trade of the 19th century for
> >those of us who like pet birds.  One of the methods people use to import
> >birds is to wear special vests full of pockets for rare bird eggs.
> 
> Yes, Cliff Stoll described how this plot was hatched in his book "The
> Cuckoo's Egg."
> 
> (This was a yolk, folks. I stoll it.)

For that you must be punished.
 
> P.S. I am persuaded that the importation of rare tropical birds into the
> U.S. is a GOOD THING, and that the attempts to ban such imports are
> misguided eco-fundie efforts. Diversity will be enhanced by having the
> birds in the U.S., and if left in their native jungles, most will die
> anyway. Better a pampered tropical bird in a gilded cage than lunch for
> some predator, or starvation as the jungles are cleared by slash-and-burn
> farmers.

Scientifically invalid. Releasing non-native species can really wreck an
ecosystem because of the lack of evolved countermeasures. See kudzu weeds
in the South, or the Mediterranean fruit fly in California, or pigs and
sheep on tropical islands, or humans with big brains and opposable thumbs
anywhere but Africa. The better engineered solution would be to feed the
slash-and-burn farmers some other way. 

Kind of analogous to an engineer like Paul Kocher taking a hard look at
crypto systems that had only been analyzed by pure mathematicians. You 
need to feed the sniffers real entropy, not just highly evolved math.

-rich