Taxacom: Species 2000 degrading Nat Hist collections to dead objects

[John Grehan]

Here's another quote from the thesis on what happens to the best laid
schemes of mice and men (thesis so far had 813 views and 402 downloads
after 7 days)

Undescribed species, the bulk of the land snail collections, which were
known to researchers and collectors by tag names, were segregated from the
formally described species, allocated Species 2000 numbers, and then
arranged in numerically ascending order within each family. Existing labels
were replaced with electronically printed labels. The undescribed species
Cavellia ?tararuaensis? ms, for example, became Charopidae sp. 11. Such
changes were made for hundreds of unnamed species that had already been
taxonomically integrated into the collection, identified as separate taxa
in research notes, had manuscript names and were part of ongoing taxonomic
and biogeographic analyses in preparation for publications. The Species
2000 voucher checklist was eventually published in 2009 without
acknowledgement of previously existing manuscript names. Consultation with
external stakeholders such as Auckland Museum curatorial staff or with the
main originator of the knowledge and ongoing research presented in the
checklist was minimal.175 Living relationships are at the heart of mana
taonga and guarded by it, but in the case of the introduction of the
Species 2000 voucher system they were stripped from the collections and
replaced by a numerical order. *The collection reverted to the
conchological cabinets of the old days, full of dead objects not unlike the
display of curiosities in the Te Taiao | Nature exhibition.*

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