wild release doesn't work?

[John V. Calhoun]

Anne Kilmer wrote:
> 
> At ground central here, I can report that the atala is, in general, a managed
> species in the part of South Florida I'm playing with (Palm Beach County and its
> neighboring counties). It exists in people's gardens, because they like it and care
> for it. This includes removing excess numbers of the larvae, as they are quite
> capable of killing the host plant.
>     As butterfliers are tender-hearted, this means finding a friend with coontie (a
> slow-growing expensive cycad), and giving them some of your extra bugs.
>    


I think Anne has pointed out another important point in the atala saga. 
It's success can also be attributed to the "gardener's baton" which has 
undoubtedly allowed the species to establish new populations more 
quickly and over a larger area than would be possible under normal 
conditions.  I believe that the failures to reestablish atala during the 
early 1960's probably hinged on the failure to recognize the species' 
overall needs, including abundant nectar sources in the vicinity of 
hostplants. Garden environments adequately provide these conditions, to 
the delight of atala and it's admirers.  In Florida, it has been found 
to utilize at least eleven species of cycads. This is wonderful if you 
want atala, but a nightmare if your expensive exotic plants are 
disappearing (such as botanical gardens that don't really want a pretty 
butterfly eating up their displays).

The recent northward advance of atala up the east coast of Florida is 
undoubtedly the combined result of natural dispersal and "assisted" 
dispersal.  As Anne and I have pointed out, this can throw a monkey 
wrench into studies of the species' distribution.  From this time 
forward, new northern and western distribution records will be viewed as 
most likely "assisted." Too bad. It would have been fascinating to see 
how the species would naturally have expanded it's range following 
the initial human assist.  It may have done just fine, reaching the 
neighbor's imported cydads all by itself. It just may have taken a 
little longer to do so...

Best,
John