Dr. Sears, Monarchs, Bt corn

[Chip Taylor]

>This discussion isn't particularly productive since Mr. Cherubini 
>keeps shifting the focus and citing facts and figures which are 
>inappropriate for the points he's trying to make.

However, a couple of quick rejoinders - the data cited below are only 
partially correlated with the total size of the monarch population in 
the US or Mexico. From these data one might predict that last yrs 
population was the largest in the last 8 years and that 96 was the 
third lowest. Not so. In 1996 the overwintering population in Mexico 
was the largest in the last 8 yrs and last yr's numbers were 
midrange. To a certain, as yet undefined, extent the numbers of 
monarchs represented in Pollard transects at Cape May represent the 
accumulations of monarchs at the Point due to weather factors such as 
Hurricane Floyd last yr. These data can't be used to assess long term 
trends in monarch numbers. In fact, at this time, there is no data 
base available that can be used make claims about long term trends. I 
have made this point to Monsanto and Bio and to numerous reporters. 
How this information is used is another matter. I have no explanation 
for Monsanto's statement - I have never said monarch populations are 
declining - only that there are threats to the long term stability of 
monarch support system.

Chip

>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 "Chip" Taylor, .....
>
>Paul Cherubini, Placerville, California

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