I hope you caught the first episode of the 2011 BBC Springwatch season. Whilst watching, it struck me that the film and photography featured is going to be a fantastic resource for biologists to come. As scientists become ever more aware of the importance of context and as we wish to study behaviour and the dynamic properties of organisms, the action of live organisms is increasingly a point of study. When thinking like this, video like that on Springwatch is equivalent to the data preserved in museum collections (containing preserved individuals and associated information): data which we use to understand the species and groups the specimens or film represents. These recordings are specimens, just like anything in a museum cabinet.
All collections need curation and the BBC (in addition to all of the education, programme-making etc.) curates a HUGE collection of wildlife film, certainly no small task! Worth the license fee? Absolutely!
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