How Healthy Were the Cornell Study Monarch Caterpillars?

[Paul Cherubini]

Chip Taylor's Monarch Watch and Cornell University trade/supply one
another with monarch breeding stock and also sell breeding stock to many
commercial monarch breeders. The monarch breeders have a private mailing
list. The following were comments different breeders made on the mailing
list earlier this year who had purchased monarch caterpillars and pupae
from the Monarch Watch. They raise a question about the general health
of the caterpillars used in the Cornell (and possibly Iowa State studies
if Iowa got their stock from Monarch Watch or Cornell) study:

BREEDER #1. : "I'm glad we are finally addressing the problems of
Monarch Watch. I ordered 24 catapillars and 12 pupae from them at the
beginning of March.None of the catapillars survived ( black liquid) and
only 4 of the chrysalis hatched. Three of the butterflies wings didn't
expand
completely, they had a ruffled appearance, and the 4th was crippled.I
called Monarch Watch and told them the problems I was having and they
told me I should of let them know I was using them for breeding
purposes!!!  Dah!! They could tell by my shipping address that they
weren't sending them to a lonely housewife! (well maybe!). Makes you
wander where all their "unclean" stock is going to. Anyways, I was told
that they would get clean stock from Cornell University and replace the
12 pupae. Guess what? This time NONE of them hatched.They were nice
enough to bill me for the order since I have dealt with them in the
past. I can tell you they aren't getting any money from
me."

BREEDER#2. "I received a shipment from Monarch Watch the week of March
1. Mine looked great, but grew very slowly, died off one by one with no
particular symptoms and just failed to pupate. One made it to a
chrysalis and then didn't seal itself off properly, with the final
shedding of skin sticking to the chrysalis. When they first became
lifeless, they still had good color, but after a few hours, they turned
dark. Anyone have any suggestions? I am almost totally discouraged."

BREEDER #3: . "I ordered 20 pupae delivered last week. As of this
morning11 were infected or diseased. I'll let you know what they say. I
have
them in the freezer incase Monarch Watch wants them back."

BREEDER #4: ."They replaced the first order with another one, and blamed
the death on the high humidity here. I would not order from
them again"

BREEDER #5: "I've not had any luck with Monarch Watch larvae and i don't
know anyone else who has either. when confronted with the deaths (and i
gave them plenty of details regarding the symptoms) they told me they
had no idea what was wrong or where it could have come from. They did
offer me a free replacement, but that batch was as sick as the first. I
didn't bother dealing with them after that. I won't buy from them again.
I know that we are all pretty disgusted with the caterpillars coming
from  Monarch Watch. But they have done alot for the monarch and it
seems that they have been capable of delivering clean stock in the
past.I think it is important to remember that they are a research
organization, that depends on grant funding (mostly government)
and it may not be in their best interest to publically admit that their
stock is diseased. Not to mention that they depend on sales income for
alot of their educational activity."

BREEDER#6: (In a letter to the Monarch Watch this breeder wrote:)
"Apparently, NUMEROUS butterfly breeders have received Monarch livestock
from Monarch Watch that has been diseased, ill or has quickly become
diseased and ill after receipt. Please let me know aboutyour Monarch
quality at present. Have you resolved your
problems and are you now shipping out healthy stock? If you cannot
guarantee this then PLEASE CANCEL MY ORDER AND RETURN MY CHECK TO ME."

BREEDER #7: " The Monarch Watch caterpillars did not present with the
exact same symptoms.(No green discharge) They became dark while in the J
position and one of the chrysalises had black spots-the butterfly did
not emerge."

Dale Wilfong, Program Assistant for the Monarch Watch wrote the
following to one breeder earlier this spring:

"Thank you for your request for information on our Monarch stock.
It is true we have been having some trouble with the last instar larvae.
First the problem was that we were rearing them on artificial diet and
they were not pupating well. Then we changed our policy and began to
ship the fift instars on plants, they seemed to improve, but we now have
a disease problem in this population (ONLY the caterpillars on plants,
i.e., the fifth instar larvae or rearing kit #1's are affected.) We keep
a second population of larvae solely on diet and have seen limited
amounts of nosema in this population. We keep the larvae until they are
3-5 days old and discard any larvae that show signs of this disease. The
3-5 day old larvae that we ship out are the healthiest and largest
larvae that we have. We cannot do any better than that. However, this is
a natural system and it isimpossible to completely irradicate any and
all chance of diseases from a population. However, we get our breeding
stock from Cornell University (as pupae) and they have always had a
disease free culture. We use the pupae we get from them as breeding
stock and all of our larvae originate from the adults we get from them.
If you really want to be 99% (nothing is100%) sure that you get disease
free stock, I can send you Cornell pupae to use for breeding (we do not
ship these for wedding releases, etc.) The cost for the pupae is $5.00
each plus $10 shipping. If you would like to make this substitution in
your order let me know. I hope this addresses your concerns
about your order.

Thanks, Dana

Dana Wilfong
 Program Assistant
 Monarch Watch
 c/o O.R. Taylor
 Department of Entomology
 Haworth Hall
 University of Kansas
 Lawrence, KS 66045
 (888)TAGGING
 fax: 785-864-4441 or 785-864-5321
  http://www.MonarchWatch.org

 "Dr. Taylor read the email that I sent to you and pointed out that I
should have made the qualification that the Cornell pupae have never had
an incidence of the Ophryocystis spore in them and that we could not
claim that they were 99% free of other common Monarch diseases like
Nosema or viruses,etc. since there is not a way to check for those
diseases in the pupae."I hope I have answered all of your questions.

Thanks,
 Dana