譯/陳韋廷
In February, the Journal of the British Tarantula Society published a paper describing a new species of tarantula, which was discovered in a national park in Sarawak, Malaysia. While the male of the species was an unremarkable brown, the female had eye-catching, electric blue legs.
今年二月，《英國蜘蛛學會期刊》發表一篇論文，描述在馬來西亞砂勞越國家公園發現一個新狼蛛物種。雖然雄狼蛛顏色是平淡無奇的棕色，雌狼蛛卻有引人注目的電光藍色的腿。
New spiders are discovered all the time, and the paper likely would have gone largely unnoticed — were it not for an article in Science magazine that appeared soon afterward.
一直有新蜘蛛被發現，若不是另一篇文章緊接著在《科學》雜誌上刊出，前述論文很可能乏人注意。
The article claimed that the tarantula researchers had received their specimens secondhand from private collectors in Poland and Britain, who had poached them in Malaysia.
《科學》雜誌那篇文章聲稱，狼蛛研究人員從波蘭與英國的私人收藏家那裡取得二手標本，而標本是這些收藏家在馬來西亞盜獵的。
Neither Ray Gabriel nor Danniella Sherwood, the authors of the study, responded to email requests for comment. But Peter Kirk, chairman of the British Tarantula Society and editor of the society's journal, said the collectors had shown the scientists an import permit from Poland, and they "had no reason to think due process wasn't followed."
研究報告的作者是雷．蓋布里爾和丹尼拉．薛伍德，兩人均未回覆要求評論的電子郵件，但英國蜘蛛學會主席兼該學會期刊主編彼得．柯克表示，收藏家有向科學家們展示波蘭的進口許可證，所以他們「沒理由認為有違正當程序」。
"The paper absolutely will not be retracted, because it's a completely legitimate published paper," he said.
他說：「這篇論文絕對不會撤回，因為它是一篇完全合法發表的論文。」
The incident has reignited a decades-old debate among scientists and hobbyists alike about research ethics, specimen collection and "biopiracy" — the use of natural resources without obtaining permission from local communities or sharing any benefits with them.
這起事件再次在科學家跟業餘愛好者圈內引發長達數十年、有關研究倫理、標本收集及「生物剽竊」的爭論，而生物剽竊指的是未經當地社區許可，或與其分享任何利益而使用自然資源。
"The majority of responses I've seen are people saying, 'Yes, we need to stop this,' but there's also been a fair amount of people basically trying to justify the poaching and smuggling of these tarantulas," said Ernest Cooper, a conservation consultant in British Columbia.
加拿大卑詩省保育顧問恩斯特．庫柏說：「我看過的大多數人都說『是的，我們需要阻止這種事』，但也有不少人基本上試圖把盜獵與走私這些狼蛛合理化。」
"It's this very strange, slightly colonial attitude of, 'We know better than developing countries, so their laws don't matter.'"
「這是種非常奇怪、略帶殖民主義色彩的態度：『我們知道的比發展中國家多，所以他們的法律不重要』。」
Illegal wildlife trade is dominated by headlines about criminal cartels trafficking in ivory, rhino horn and pangolin scales. But scientists can also be complicit in illegal trade by poaching specimens themselves or by working with those who do.
有關非法野生動物貿易的報導，幾乎全集中在犯罪集團販賣象牙、犀牛角與穿山甲的麟片，但科學家也能透過自己盜獵標本或是跟盜獵者合作而參與非法貿易。
This type of wildlife crime occurs on a much smaller scale, but experts in a variety of fields believe it is a significant issue.
這類有關野生動物的犯罪行為規模雖然小得多，但諸多領域的專家都認為是個重大問題。
"It's a problem globally, and it happens a lot," said Sérgio Henriques, chairman of the spider and scorpion group at the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
國際自然保育聯盟蜘蛛與蠍子專家組主席塞吉歐．亨利克斯說：「這是項全球性問題，而且經常發生。」
For Henriques and others, this sort of collection raises deep ethical concerns. "We're the scientists, the ones who are supposed to know better and who should be leading by example," he said. "If we can't follow the rules, why are we demanding that others do?"
對於亨利克斯這些人來說，這類收藏引起了高度道德憂慮。他說：「我們是科學家，理應更明白且以身作則。要是我們自己不遵守規則，又為何要求別人這樣做呢？」
