Guidelines for Evaluating Requests for Destructive Sampling of Mammal Specimens at the University of Kansas

I. Procedure and criteria for approval

A. Formal request submitted to Division for review.

A written proposal should be sent to the Division of Mammals for review and approval prior to the visit. The proposal should state the taxa to be studied, the number of individuals requested, the exact nature and size of the sample requested, the tec hniques that will be used in the study, and the question(s) being addressed. As in the approval procedure for loans, the thoroughness demanded for a particular request may vary according to our collective familiarity with researchers, their institutions, and the methods being applied.

B. Processing of requests.

Requests will be evaluated through informal solicitation of colleagues' input. Thus, various members of the curatorial and collection management staff here will be involved in the evaluation of requests. We may also solicit opinions of colleagues at other institutions. The goal here is to seek a plurality of informed opinion for prompt response, to avoid creating another labyrinthine bureaucratic procedure.

C. Criteria and considerations for approval.

1. Purpose and merit of study.

2. Demonstrated competence of researchers with proposed methods and availability of institutional resources to carry out stated research.

3. Appropriateness of the technique applied and the taxa sampled to the question(s) posed.

4. Availability of material from other sources.

a. Can equivalent material be collected from the field specifically for the project in question? Is it available from tissue collections or from zoos?

b. Rarity of the taxon in the wild and/or in collections.

5. Potential for compromising the future utility of specimens for other kinds of systematic investigation.

II. Procedures to be followed once approval is granted

A. Removal of tissue sample.

1. As a rule, investigator(s) will be required to remove samples from specimens here in the Museum, rather than on borrowed specimens.

2. Operation will be monitored by a staff member, at least initially. Investigator(s) must perform the excision in such a way as to avoid contamination of the specimen.

3. As a rule, only one sample may be removed per specimen.

4. Types will remain inviolate.

B. Documentation.

1. Investigator(s) will be required to provide a listing of KU catalog numbers for specimens from which samples have been removed. This should include notation of location and type of the sample removed from each specimen. Our curatorial staf f will record this information on the specimen tags and/or computer database, making it available for future researchers.

2. Reprints of all publications generated as a result of investigations utilizing KU specimens should be sent to the Division.