b-fly releases at events
Paul Cherubini
paulcher at concentric.net
Sun Sep 26 09:17:43 EDT 1999
I wrote:
> What is the realistic probability that one of the few Lepidopterists in
> Fairbanks area is ever going to spot one of these short lived [Painted Lady]
> butterflies [released by schools] and cause a false sighting to be entered
> into the biogeograhical sight record database?
Ken Philip replied:
"There is _one_ lepidopterist in Fairbanks--and in 1986 I obtained
a _V. cardui_ on Ester Dome, near Fairbanks. The only other specimens
obtained by the Alaska Lepidoptera Survey (in 30 years) were 4 specimens
from Ketchikan, in SE Alaska."After 33 years of intensive collecting and observation in the
Fairbanks area, I can safely say that _V. cardui_ here is _very rare_,
and it wouldn't take many released individuals to swamp the migrants."
Ken, it sounds like you have not spotted any more Painted Ladies in the Fairbanks area
during the past 13 years (since 1986) despite continued releases by the 19 elementary
schools in the Fairbanks area. The pro-release community could view this as evidence that
the chances that school released specimens will ever be spotted by lepidopterists are
extremely small.
Ken wrote:
> I have wondered, ever since hearing a fascinating paper in Ottawa in 1986,
> whether the migration tracks of Monarchs might actually have nothing to
> do with genetic variation, but rather merely reflect the effect of the
> starting point on some fixed behavior pattern.
Ken, available evidence suggests your latter hypothesis is correct.
In 1964, 800 monarchs from Toronto, Canada were tagged and shipped to Reno, Nevada
for release in September. Three were recaptured along the California coast in October and
November in the vicinity of California monarch overwintering sites - these eastern monarchs
obviously did head in the direction of Mexico as one would expect if, in fact, eastern
monarchs are genetically programmed to do so.
In 1972, Donald Davis, (who is subscribed to this list) shipped over 1000 Toronto
monarchs to Vancouver, British Columbia.in August and September. I recaptured two of
them, alive and clustering with our California monarchs, at overwintering roosts near San
Francisco, California in October and November - again demonstrating genetics is not
involved much, if at all, in the control of migration tracks.
In Sept. 1973 I shipped hundreds of tagged California monarchs to North Dakota for
release. Three were recaptured - at Omaha, Nebraska, Pratt, Kansas and Dwight, Kansas -
exactly the "path" eastern monarchs take to Mexico.
This is all published information in science journals - BUT, Jeff Glassberg, Bob Pyle, Paul
Opler and Tuttle obviously chose to ignore it when they wrote:
"Now imagine tens of thousands of mixed-up Monarchs unable to find the way to their
overwintering grounds. This depressing image may become a reality if the rapidly-growing
fad of releasing butterflies, including Monarch butterflies, at weddings, state fairs, and other
public events continues to spread. Because the released Monarchs may have come from
California, for instance, where they do not migrate to Mexico, their offspring may not be
able to orient properly"
In this way, these Ph.D. scientists and lep leaders have (seemingly intentionally) been
giving the public and government regulators an incomplete, distorted view of monarch
migration biology.
Paul Cherubini, Placerville, California
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