Monarchs and the Bt Transgenic Corn Pollen Scare

[Doug Yanega]

Paul Cherubini wrote:

>TV & newspaper articles are circulating around the country this week
>claiming a new
>farming technology may threaten the eastern monarch migration phenomenon.
>Is there
>substance to that concern?

Funny this should appear here the same time as an almost identical thread
on entomo-l. This worry about monarchs is bewildering, and I agree with
you. HOWEVER:

Let's COMPLETELY ignore the monarch for the moment, okay, and assume that
Paul's arguments are all correct in that context. Now, in Illinois, for
example, there are a number of endangered prairie skippers and moths which
can often *certainly* be found within 200 feet of cornfields (it's hard for
*anything* in Illinois to be very far from a cornfield). What about these
taxa?

Are you implying that we should not be concerned that other, threatened,
non-target leps that occur in and around agricultural land are at risk? But
how much public attention would it receive if someone announced "Some
threatened prairie moths in Illinois might get wiped out!"? Maybe the folks
at Cornell were choosing between making a totally honest announcement that
everyone would ignore, and one that was less honest, but would get
everyone's attention?

Peace,


Doug Yanega       Dept. of Entomology           Entomology Research Museum
Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
phone: (909) 787-4315
                  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