Dr. Sears, Monarchs, Bt corn

[Paul Cherubini]

Chip Taylor wrote:

> Monarchs are identified in a recent study as being one
> of the species likely to be strongly impacted by global 
> warming. 

> Loss of habitat includes loss of milkweeds and any 
> change in agriculture that results in a reduction of 
> milkweeds, such as Roundup Ready corn and soybeans, 
> will have a negative impact on monarchs. The jury is still
> out on the Bt corn issue in spite of the vigorous assertions
> of Dr Sears and the recent statements by the EPA. Polemics
> are involved here - not data.

Well look what happens even when we have hard
data on monarch population trends like this:

CAPE MAY POINT ROAD CENSUS 1992-1999

The following table gives cumulative averages of
monarchs observed per hour at the end of each
week in Sept and Oct. over the last 8 years:

          1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999

Week 1    8     12     96     43       9   184       3     23
Week 2   11    12   155     35       7   125     28     17
Week 3   12    41   143     29     52   156     21   106
Week 4   13    68   124     27     59   173     39   181
Week 5   12    82   129     27     73   153     51   463
Week 6   12    81   108     27     69   140     50   475
Week 7   13    72     95     29     66   129     54   409
Week 8   11    65     91     27     63   114     51   357

Totals:     92  433  941   244   398  1174  297  2031

As everyone can see, the fall migrations of 1997 and
1999 along the New Jersey coast yielded the best
monarch census counts in 8 years of monitoring.

Chip, in your frequent contacts with the media have
you ever felt compelled to provide reporters with
this reassuring data about monarch population
trends so it gets widely disseminated to the public? 
Did this data find it's way into your recent 
talk in Central Park, New York?  

Not exactly. And this is my whole point - the
public gets a distorted, negative view of monarch 
population trends thanks, ironically, to unbalanced
information provided to the media by high profile
monarch scientists.

Even the biotech industry has been fooled. Look
at what Monsanto says on it's own website:
http://www.fooddialogue.com/monarch/factors.html

"The decline of monarch butterfly populations has 
been a concern for decades. The main causes of
premature death and population loss, according to 
Dr. Orley ³Chip² Taylor, .....

Paul Cherubini, Placerville, California