Actually, some of us who live, say in the midwest, will travel long distances
to wade in a bog to see CP... without even collecting any! (Cheap thrills?
Perhaps, but what else is there to do in the midwest?)
Of course, when I stomp around in a bog hunting for the perfect photo
opportunity, I am probably killing more plants than somone who came by
unprepared (without boots) and who just plucked a few CP from the bog
margin.
I saw a PBS documentary on bogs several months ago. It featured scenes of
peat moss harvesting in Canada. Huge bogs are destroyed in order to supply
the horticulture trade with peat. Does buying peat moss for our plants
support the death of CP and their habitats? New Zealand peat moss; are they
destroying D. arcturi habitat as they harvest it?
I guess that it is pretty hard to avoid harming the environment, even if
we don't collect. Humans are consumers, we can't eliminate our impact,
but (here's the plug!) we can work towards reducing the growth of the
human population... and by doing so reduce the frequency of all the little
burdens that each individual must place on the environment.
Michael Chamberland (trying to win the soapbox competition)