Florida Traps

[anne kilmer]

Interesting indeed.
Whenever you deliberately jigger the wildlife population of an area,
whether by putting out a bird feeder, adding a butterfly garden, or just
putting in a little pond, you are going to impact the lives of a lot of
little guys. 
I think the bird feeder is the most likely to damage the local ecology,
as it attracts "trash" birds such as starlings and grackles, which feed
their young on your caterpillars. 
The bluebird houses merely replace the dead trees (snags) that used to
provide housing for these nice native birds. But of course they will
also eat your butterflies. 
The gardener at one school I've worked with proudly added a martin house
at the center of the butterfly garden the children had painstakingly
designed and planted. That seemed to me poor strategy. 
Most people don't know enough about botany, biology, the life of the bee
and so forth, yet we muddle in, all sails set, in the hopes of mending
the environment. Any garden is an assault on the integrity of the local
system, after all. And  I'm reminded of the teacher who planned to
bulldoze the native saw palmettos in order to plant pentas for her
butterflies. 
I promote butterfly gardening in order to provide plenty of caterpillars
for the birds I love. Naturally I also foster moths, spiders etc. 
I think, after the first few years of fanaticism (as Lana Edwards
reminded us) most of us relax and enjoy nature even when it's a squirrel
eating our monarch caterpillars. We're fattening him up for the owl, and
what goes around, comes around. 
We can't "fix" nature so that we'll like it better, but we can "fix" our
gardening practices to be more life-affirming. I guess. Bluebirds are
surely better than pesticides. But I dunno. 
Just killing time till the next ice age, anyway. 
Cheers
Anne Kilmer
Mayo, Ireland

Cris Guppy & Aud Fischer wrote:
> 
> Interesting thought ... bluebirds are highly insectivorous and presumably
> love "collecting" butterflies, including rare species. An dilemma: Is the
> act of increasing populations of birds that kill butterflies, the same as
> people directly killing butterflies?
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wanda <be496 at lafn.org>
> To: NABA <naba at naba.org>
> Cc: leps-l at lists.yale.edu <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>
> Date: May 24, 2000 10:48 AM
> Subject: Re: Florida Traps
> 
> >Thanks Jeff, for representing us so graciously.
> >
> >I'll certainly vouch that traps of all kinds get damaged, removed, etc.
> >and don't mean just by the weather!   There has been a big push for
> >bringing bluebirds back to the area and numerous birdhouses have been
> >built and placed in parks toward that end.  If a birdhouse makes it
> >through the year, it is amazing!
> >
> >Wanda Dameron
> >LA-NABA, Lep Soc, Xerces, Lorquin, ATL
> >Flutterby Press, San Fernando Valley, Ca.
> >
> >> NABA wrote:
> >>
> >> Earlier today, the following message was intended to be copied to this
> >> address,  but  an  empty   message  was  inadvertantly  sent  instead.
> >>
> >> Dear Mr. Koehn,
> >>
> >> Alana Edwards  forwarded to me your email in  which you state that you
> >> have  received  telephone  calls  informing  you that  a  NABA  member
> >> destroyed  a trap  and removed  others that  you had placed  near Port
> >> Mayaca.
> >>
> >> Please be  assured that if such  actions did in fact  take place, they
> >> were in  no way encouraged nor  condoned by NABA. I  have seen some of
> >> the same second and third hand information that you have seen, stating
> >> that a  NABA member  did interfere with  one of your traps.  If you do
> >> have  convincing information  that  a particular  individual destroyed
> >> your trap, I encourage  you to take this matter up with them directly,
> >> if you so desire. If a NABA member participating on one of these field
> >> trips did  destroy or take a  trap belonging to you,  then I sincerely
> >> apologize on behalf of NABA for their behavior.
> >>
> >> A few  groups of  NABA members did  visit an area near  Port Mayaca in
> >> conjunction with  the NABA  Members Meeting being held  in nearby West
> >> Palm Beach, Florida. I, myself led the first group of approximately 16
> >> people to this area on Friday, May 18. You mention that you had placed
> >> a  number of  traps in  this area,  but I  noticed only a  single trap
> >> placed in  a tree. Since my group was the  first NABA field trip group
> >> to visit the site, it is entirely possible that other, non-NABA people
> >> removed some of them. As you probably know, bait traps can attract all
> >> sorts of attention. The first traps that Bob Robbins and I placed near
> >> the Amazon River in 1970 were cut down and stolen the first day out.
> >>
> >> Very  few  of the  people  in my  group  remarked about  the trap  and
> >> certainly none  did anything to disturb it.  Personally, I had no idea
> >> as to  whom the trap belonged  or for what purpose  it were there, but
> >> assumed  (apparently  not  entirely  correctly) that  any  butterflies
> >> trapped would  be released. A  few other groups visited  the same area
> >> when I was not present.
> >>
> >> To reiterate,  NABA does not condone  the destruction of others&rsquo;
> >> property and if a  NABA member was involved in such destruction during
> >> a NABA-led  field trip, then we  apologize for that individual&rsquo;s
> >> unwarranted, unauthorized and unacceptable behavior.
> >>
> >> Sincerely,
> >>
> >> Jeffrey Glassberg
> >>
> >> President: NABA
> >
> >