Checkerspot on the news

[anne kilmer]

I have pursued this on the glorious Web ... 
They're finding that the nitrogen in vehicle emissions causes non-native
grasses to crowd out the native host plants that the Bay checkerspot
uses. 
They now use cows (!) to graze down the grasses and find that the
butterfly returns. 
Anybody think they're grazing the embattled area? 
 Cows are not an elegant solution anyway. I suppose the little man with
the bucket and spade is gathering the manure, but hooves dig up fragile
soil, destroy other plants, and cows are not that particular as to what
they eat. 
Sheep and goats would be worse. 
Any votes for Boy Scouts with Roundup onna stick? 
Second graders with nail scissors? 
The requirements for the bugs are frighteningly precise ... maybe we'll
win, and I'm glad we're trying, but oh Lordy, Lordy.
 
http://www.hort.agri.umn.edu/h5015/97papers/mason.html

Here's a nice site. 

Anne Kilmer
Mayo, Ireland
Doug Yanega wrote:
> 
> >http://www.butterfliesforsale.com/Species.htm
> >
> >Would that be the Chalcedon checkerspot, do you think?
> 
> No, it would Euphydryas e. editha, known as the Bay Checkerspot (the name
> "bayensis" is not valid). It *IS* Federally listed, and if it occurs on the
> property in question (it's certainly the right area), then theoretically
> there should be significant difficulties in getting the land developed.
> Five years with no sightings is certainly possible on an inhabited piece of
> property, though it all depends on the credibility of the consultants doing
> the surveys. One certainly does hear of consulting firms who conveniently
> fail to report positive sightings, or contract out to marginally competent
> field people who don't do a thorough job of surveying.
> 
> Doug Yanega        Dept. of Entomology         Entomology Research Museum
> Univ. of California - Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521
> phone: (909) 787-4315 (standard disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)
>            http://insects.ucr.edu/staff/yanega.html
>   "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness
>         is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82