WHAT IS THE FUTURE FOR TAXONOMY IN LAW?
It should be evident that laws cannot be applied unless words used in the laws can be precisely understood. Subspecies should be struck not only from all environmental and wildlife law but from all scientific usage. This does not mean that managers must forget about managing populations, ecotypes or geographic races. Nor does it mean that laws cannot be drafted to protect these populations. In the future, legislation to protect populations should be defined with respect to geographic origin of an individual through zoning regulations. Convictions under this legislation would be based upon proof of the point of origin and not an obscure and arbitrary taxonomic identity. In most cases an expert witness today would rely upon knowledge of the point of origin to assist his identity of a subspecies. Why not give the public the same benefit when drafting legislation by using expert knowledge to define protection zones for geographic races in advance. Other jurisdictions might do well to consi
