wild release doesn't work?

Anne Kilmer viceroy at gate.net
Tue Feb 17 08:30:57 EST 1998



John V. Calhoun wrote:

> Anne Kilmer wrote:
> >   Well, now. The host plant is all-but extinct in the wild, and is therefore available
> > only iin managed landscapes.
>
> Well now, don't be so sure.  Although the general understanding is that
> Zamia is "all but extinct in the wild" it is hardly so.  In fact, it is
> rather common in many areas.  I often see it in wild situations in many
> areas of the state, as far north as Gainesville.

snip

>
>
> The point I was making is that atala would probably still have spread,
> despite the help of gardeners.  It had begun this process ten years
> before gardeners knew the butterfly could easily be cultivated. Although
> gardeners usually quickly treat infestation, coonties are also being
> planted on a large scale along roads, in parking lot islands, and in
> urban parks where the plants are not as closely guarded.  It is under
> these conditions that atala would probably have gone unnoticed until it
> was too late.  This is, of course, all conjecture, since the situation
> is beyond our ability to sort out with certainty.
>
> The bottom line is that we have a successful little species that at one
> time was thought to have disappeared.  For that, despite the reasons, we
> are grateful.
>
> Best,
> John

  Ok. I was there.
About 10 years ago, when the butterfly-gardening-in-the-schools program was young and
growing, a butterflier spotted a humongous colony of atalas in a road median in Juno Beach.
It was  a median planted and maintained by the local FPL  folks.
They had pretty obviously been using pesticide occasionally, as the plants were large and
vigorous.
So we pointed out what they'd got there. And presently they  dis-adopted the median strip,
and let God take care of it.
At about this point, I had got into trouble with God and the other butterfliers, by saying
that I believed atala populations would need to be controlled. By which I meant managed, as
the English language certainly permits.
Garden people, it turns out, use controlled as a euphemism meaning wiped out. Well, sir ...
The atala has no predators to speak of, except man. A few wasps, a few (very few) scrub
jays. Well, bright red caterpillars feeding on  a very toxic plant ...
A slow-growing, expensive plant.
The bugs do best in crowds, so that the grackles don't have to taste a lot of them to figure
out that they're all nasty. They can also gang up on a plant, exhaust its powers to poison
them, and eat into the tuberous root.
In a state of nature, the plant is scattered about in clumps, where (probably) a gopher
tortoise or raccoon planted a load of seeds. Odds are that the butterflies won't locate all
the clumps.
As we plant them, they are in tidy rows, where one chewed plant brings the gardener down at
once.
So the City of Riviera Beach called me in as consultant. Department of Symbolism, you know.
I went and chatted with the people who lived in condominiums along that road, and who had
offered to pay to remove the nasty coonties and plant something nice. I did the singing and
the dancing and slides of butterflies. Some of the vigorous butterfliers came along. We all
went out and weeded and planted pretty groundcover that would somewhat obscure the
bug-bitten plants, and provide nectar for the butterflies as well.
Then, as people do, we wandered off. I havent' been back there but I gather, from the count,
that the atalas are still ok. And a good many other colonies did form, in a natural way,
from free-flying butterflies from that colony and others.
They are tolerated, however, because people choose to allow them to live.
This is true of everything on this wonderful planet, tigers and sharks and bedbugs, to a
greater or lesser extent. And when you discriminate between natural and assisted spread, I
think you have to regard us as a natural force, either way.
When Nature recovers from an assault, she reupholsters her self with what's handy. This is
usually exotic weeds.
It will also be exotic butterflies, unless we are all out there eagerly planting natives,
ripping out buddleija and candlestick cassia and melaleuca  ...
all of which are delightful plants in their place, and much-loved by gardeners and
butterflies.
Well, we're pretty exotic ourselves, and perhaps it doesn't matter as much as we think.
Gresham's law applies to an ecology, just as it does to an economy. Bad money drives out
good. Weeds and weedy butterflies (Pieris rapae? Geranium bronze?) drive out choice natives.

But a vacant lot gay with buddleija and cabbage whites lifts a lot of hearts. So there we
are.
You can have ignorance, or you can have biodiversity. I don't think there's room for both.
yours
Anne Kilmer viceroy at gate.net
South Florida




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