<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><span class="" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">Most people familiar with the sudden decline attribute it to an external factor,</span></div></blockquote><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><span class="" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 15px;">like near surface water contaminations by noenicitinoids… or airborne drift . </span></div></blockquote><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">Some butterflies continue to be abundant where neonicotinoid insecticides </span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">are used </span><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">heavily on a region wide scale; e.g. on the corn & soybean </span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">croplands of the </span><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">upper Midwest.</span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">Late last August 2021 I shot this video of monarchs migrating Southwest in </span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">south-central Minnesota at the rate of 20 butterflies per minute:</span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><a href="https://youtu.be/Q1ugyulER6Q" class="">https://youtu.be/Q1ugyulER6Q</a></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><br class=""></span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">And in Sept. 2020 a farmer in south-central Minnesota shot this </span><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">video of </span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">hundreds of monarch nectaring on some </span><span class="" style="font-family: Roboto, "helvetica neue", helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Liatris ligulistylis flowers</span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">he planted. </span><font face="Roboto, helvetica neue, helvetica, arial, sans-serif" size="3" class=""><span class="" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><a href="https://youtu.be/CDun70cjAK0" class="">https://youtu.be/CDun70cjAK0</a></span></font></div><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;"><br class=""></span><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">Paul Cherubini</span></div><div class=""><span class="" style="font-size: 15px;">El Dorado, Calif</span>.</div></body></html>