Looking for Monarch Suppliers

Robert Chehey cheheyr at micron.net
Fri Apr 30 01:05:49 EDT 1999


I beg to differ with the last sentence.  The Monarch is (or was) quite common in
the interior PNW, being found in almost every county in ID, OR, western MT and WA,
except for some extreme coastal counties and extreme northern ID and MT counties.
I have counted 40-50 an hour passing transects, even in urban areas, during the
fall migration.  The reason I said was, above, is that the population has crashed,
coincidentally to the very stormy winter 3 years ago on the CA coast.  For two
years we saw almost none.  Last summer they had begun to appear again.  They have
almost unlimited food here, since Asclepias speciosa is one of our most common
roadside weeds.

It is a common misconception that the PNW ends at the Cascade crest.

Bob Chehey
Boise, ID

DanauSakai wrote:

> The general policy of (reputable) monarch suppliers is to NOT sell outside of
> the area they live in or where they get their basic stock.  This is to prevent
> the potential spread of communicable monarch butterfly diseases/parasites.
>
> Monarchs are not particularly plentiful in the Pacific Northwest, so there may
> not be any reliable sources of monarch stock in your area.
>
> Walt
> Walter H. Sakai
> Professor of Biology                  Research Associate
> Santa Monica College                Entomology Section
> 1900 Pico Blvd          L.A. Co. Museum of Natural History
> Santa Monica, CA 90405-1628
> Tele:  (310)434-4702  <==
> FAX: (310)434-3624   <==
> Emails:  sakai_walter at smc.edu; DanauSakai at aol.com


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