FWD: News: The practice of releasing butterflies

[Doug Yanega]

>Date:         Fri, 2 Oct 1998 01:23:08 EDT
>Reply-To: C <THCLAX00 at UKCC.UKY.EDU>
>Sender: "Ecological Society of America: grants, jobs, news"
><ECOLOG-L at UMDD.UMD.EDU>
>From: C <THCLAX00 at UKCC.UKY.EDU>
>Subject:      News: The practice of releasing butterflies
>To: ECOLOG-L at UMDD.UMD.EDU
>
>Enviro-Newsbrief                             September 15, 1998
>
>A searchable archive of past Enviro-Newsbriefs can be found on
>the EPA web site at the following URL:
>http://www.epa.gov/natlibra/hqirc/enb.htm
>
>** ENVIRONMENTALISM **
>
>Festive Release of Butterflies Puts Trouble in the Air. The New
>York Times, September 15, 1998, pD4.
>
>     The practices of releasing balloons at public events and
>throwing rice or confetti at weddings have fallen into disfavor
>because of the negative impact they have on the environment. An
>alternative to these practices, releasing butterflies, has become
>a booming industry that markets itself as being the ecologically
>sound choice.
>     "The beautiful flight of the butterflies as they ascended...
>it just seemed like the natural culmination to a natural event,"
>said Dr. Patricia Heaman of a butterfly release at her nature-
>loving daughter's wedding. Her sentiments are obviously shared by
>many others, because the business of breeding butterflies for
>release has grown dramatically in the past few years, with about
>60 companies currently in operation. With tens of thousands of
>butterflies being sold each season, at $10 each for a monarch
>butterfly, the business is a lucrative one.
>     But biologists and conservationists who study butterflies
>are becoming quite concerned about the growth of this so-called
>"green" activity, because of its potential to threaten wild
>populations of butterflies, and because it makes the study of
>migratory butterflies much more difficult.
>     "It's really such a disgusting development," said Dr.
>Jeffrey Glassberg, president of the North American Butterfly
>Association. "Environmentally, it's the worst thing you could do
>at your wedding."
>     The major concern of biologists is that raising large
>numbers of butterflies in confined environments creates a prime
>breeding ground for parasites and disease which then could spread
>to wild populations. "In natural populations, there are all sorts
>of parasites present that aren't a problem until you do captive
>breeding at high densities in close quarters," said Sonia
>Altizer, a disease ecologist at the University of Minnesota in
>St. Paul who studies diseases in monarch butterflies. "I'm
>definitely not in favor of releases."
>     But breeders counter that they are vigilant in keeping their
>colonies disease-free. "We run an extremely tight ship," said
>Jacob Groth of Swallowtail Farms in California. "When diseases do
>come through, they are caught immediately and destroyed."
>     Altizer responds by saying that most breeders raise their
>caterpillars on drugs that suppress diseases but do not actually
>eliminate them.  Also, most of the diseases that affect monarchs
>are not yet known or understood by scientists and therefore
>cannot be effectively prevented.
>     But there is no hard evidence that released butterflies are
>spreading diseases to wild populations, and such proof would be
>hard to obtain. "If I saw definite proof that shows this is
>hurting them, I would've stopped in a minute," said Rick Mikula,
>of Hole in Hand, a company that sells butterflies in
>Pennsylvania.
>     The difficulty of proving that released butterflies are
>harming wild populations stems from the fact that researchers
>can't tell which butterflies are wild and which were bred and
>released in a particular area. This makes research of migratory
>butterflies, such as the monarch, increasingly difficult, because
>the butterflies could have migrated naturally to the area or
>could have arrived from a nearby wedding.
>     "It's unnecessarily muddling the biology of the monarch
>butterfly," said Dr. Lincoln Brower, a biologist at Sweet Briar
>College in Virginia.
>     The butterfly breeders are regulated by the US Department of
>Agriculture. Dr. Robert Flanders, a senior entomologist, is in
>charge of these regulations. Flanders takes the regulations
>seriously, pointing out that "something irretrievable can
>happen," as was the case with the accidental introduction of the
>forest-destroying gypsy moth into the country. "If I make the
>wrong decision, it could impact this society for many centuries."
>     Breeders call all of the fuss over the release of
>butterflies "alarmist" for a practice that can bring joy to
>special events. "The thing I like best is the emotions, reactions
>and how much a butterfly can touch somebody. Butterflies are just
>so happy," says Chris Hundley, a former computer industry
>employee now with the butterfly company Magical Beginnings in
>California.
>     And Groth of Swallowtail Farms says "These scientists are
>all focusing on protecting the monarch as if it were a helpless,
>weak little creature. It's hardy. It does just fine on its own."
>     Informed of this argument, monarch biologist Brower said
>"That's probably what people said about the passenger pigeon 100
>years ago."
>

Doug Yanega    Depto. de Biologia Geral, Instituto de Ciencias Biologicas,
Univ. Fed. de Minas Gerais, Cx.P. 486, 30.161-970 Belo Horizonte, MG   BRAZIL
phone: 31-499-2579, fax: 31-499-2567  (from U.S., prefix 011-55)
                  http://www.icb.ufmg.br/~dyanega/
  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82