medflies in Tampa

[Mark Walker]

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> From: burro at panama.gulf.net

> Ii'm north of Panama City, but for sure, we are having a screaming
> dearth of butterflies.  Got my garden blooming especially for hummers
> and butterflies...if I see one a week, I am extremely fortunate.  Lots
> of dragonflies this year.  Lots of birds.  We are sprayed with malathion
> for mosquitoes and assured it doesn't hurt the butterflies. Don't
> believe it for a minute.
> 
> Also - the median plantings are, I believe, detrimental to butterflies.
> They cannot compete with speeding traffic...our speed limit is  65/55 on
> hwy. 231, with median planted.  I can't tell you how many I see get hit
> when the flowers are blooming.
> 
> Just a couple of thoughts...may

You bring up an interesting point - zigzagging highways with lots of
traffic don't support natural butterfly propagation.  They aid in
eliminating habitat, chop up habitat into pockets which are too small to
sustain local populations, and provide an invisible (and lethal) wall to
prevent normal migration.

Unhealthy for Blues and Monarchs alike.

All of this in addition to added pollutants and the replacement of endemic
plants with "artificial" roadside flora.

I wonder how much of an impact this has had on butterfly populations over
the last 3 decades?  We talk about it a lot, and it's intuitively
detrimental, but then butterfly populations can fluctuate wildly for a lot
of other reasons.

Mark Walker
Castleton, VT