Please Help the World's Rarest Butterfly

[Paul Cherubini]

Pierre A Plauzoles wrote:

> What he found is in absolutely total
> contradiction to your assumption that butterflies can coexist to 
> any real degree with intense human activity.  

What specific human activities (if any) did the Los Angeles
entomologist find were linked to the species' declines? 

20 years ago conservationists arbitrarily blamed butterfly declines on
air pollution, DDT and urban sprawl. But when ecologists started investigating
the full range of possible causes they sometimes arrived at far different 
conclusions.This is what happened in the case of the Bay Checkerspot butterfly.
Stuart Weiss found that many grasses and non-native plants 
introduced to California in the 1800's have had a dramatic negative
impact on the abundance of native plants this butterfly needs. Thus the
conservationists were mistaken in attributing the decline of this 
butterfly solely smog, pesticides and sprawl. Spending $100 million dollars on
a 1000 acre preserve for this butterfly would not have done it any good.

Paul Cherubini