Scientific studies and their environmental impact…

About 15 years ago or so, I was collecting insects in the Gila Wilderness in southwest NM. I came across several salamanders and I knew right away they were an undescribed species. I have a background in herpetology before I went into entomology. I captured four adults and brought them home with me. I asked the herp fellow how to proceed. He said they would examine them, preserve them and then go down and try to find more, to see how far they ranged. I thought about that for awhile and then decided there was no reason to do all of that. I brought the salamaders (five hour drive) back to where I found them and released them. I have been back twice in the last fifteen years and they are still there and they seem very pleased that nobody knows they exist. At least nobody has trampled all over their habitat looking for them. The herp guy was annoyed as he was looking forward to publishing a paper on a new species of salamader. Personally I think the salamanders were better off remaining anonymous. The question is, is it necessary to go out and kill a lot of insects looking for new species if they have absolutely no impact on humans, economically or any other way? I did a lot of arthropod identifications over the years for government agencies such as Bandelier Nat. Park, Jornada and others. I was well paid with taxpayer money to ID these arthropods. We frequently found rodents, shrews, lizards and salamanders in the pitfall traps. Was it necessary to kill all of these animals just to determine what kind of arthropods are living in a mountain, desert or riparian habitat? Should these kind of studies that have absolutely no economical meaning be funded by taxpayer dollars? At the time I thought it was okay, but now I am not so sure. Maybe all of these arthropods and other animals that will never react with humans would be much better off if we left them alone and we can put the money toward entomological pursuits such as household pests, lawn and ornamental pest, disease vectors and arthropods that actually interact with us in some way. This goes for other groups of animals as well. We don’t really need to know what kind of animals live at the bottom of the ocean, do we?