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According to the Wall Street Journal, the world has "about 10,000 active taxonomists" — not a great number when you consider how much there is to be recorded. But, the Journal adds, because of the cost (about $2,000 per species) and paperwork, only about fifteen thousand new species of all types are logged per year.
據《華爾街日報》說，世界上“大約有l萬名活躍的分類學家”——考慮到有那么多的東西需要作記錄，這個數目不算大。但是，該報接著又說，由于成本（大約每個物種1250英鎊）和文字工作的原因，每年只有大約l5000個各個類型的新物種登記入冊。
It's not a biodiversity crisis, it's a taxonomist crisis! barks Koen Maes, Belgian-born head of invertebrates at the Kenyan National Museum in Nairobi, whom I met briefly on a visit to the country in the autumn of 2002. There were no specialized taxonomists in the whole of Africa, he told me.
“目前面臨的不是生物多樣性危機，而是分類學家危機！”柯恩·梅斯大聲疾呼。梅斯生于比利時，目前是內羅畢肯尼亞國家博物館脊椎動物部的主任。2002年秋，我在訪問那個國家時與他見過一面。他對我說，整個非洲沒有專門的分類學家。
"There was one in the Ivory Coast, but I think he has retired," he said. It takes eight to ten years to train a taxonomist, but none are coming along in Africa. "They are the real fossils," Maes added. He himself was to be let go at the end of the year, he said. After seven years in Kenya, his contract was not being renewed. "No funds," Maes explained.
“象牙海岸過去有一個，但我認為他已經退休了?！彼终f。培養一名分類學家要花8一l0年時間，而在非洲沒有接班人?！八麄兪钦嬲幕！泵匪菇又f。他說，他自己到年底也要走了。他在肯尼亞待了7年，不會再續簽合同?！皼]有資金?！泵匪菇忉屨f。
Writing in the journal Nature last year, the British biologist G. H. Godfray noted that there is a chronic "lack of prestige and resources" for taxonomists everywhere. In consequence, "many species are being described poorly in isolated publications, with no attempt to relate a new taxon （The formal word for a zoological category, such as phylum or genus. The plural is taxa.） to existing species and classifications."
英國植物學家G.H.戈弗雷不久前在為《自然》雜志寫的一篇文章里指出，哪里的分類學家都經常“缺少地位和資源”。結果，“不知名的出版物里對許多物種的描述都很蹩腳，沒有人會努力把一個新的分類單元（注：動物學表示一類的正式用詞，如門或屬。）與現存的物種和分類聯系起來”。
