Dire Threat Season

[Paul Cherubini]

Eight days ago I made the following prediction on this list:

"Despite the high monarch population, we can be almost certain
that doom and gloom "monarchs are facing dire threats"
type articles will soon appear in major newspapers across North
America."

Today the following article appeared in a Florida newspaper:
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Spray may imperil monarch butterfly
By JULIE HAUSERMAN    
published August 27, 2001 St. Petersburg Times   
                                                       . 
TALLAHASSEE --This year, several U.S. butterfly researchers say, 
the massive monarch migration could face a threat here in the Florida
Panhandle, where the state is aerially spraying an insecticide
called Dibrom to kill mosquitoes that can carry the West Nile virus. 

"It could be devastating," said Karen Oberhauser, an entomologist
from the University of Minnesota who has studied monarchs for 17
years. "The migration is a key link in a chain. If something breaks
that chain -- like mosquito spray that's going to kill them -- there
won't be any monarchs to rebuild the population." 

"Every bird watcher in Florida ought to be screaming bloody
murder," said Chip Taylor, an insect ecologist at the University of
Kansas who runs a Web site called Monarch Watch. "They are
knocking out much of the insect population that the migrating birds
feed on." 

The state official in charge of the spraying, Steve Rutz of the
Department of Agriculture, said the state is using an extremely low
dose of the pesticide, which should have little effect on humans or
wildlife. 

"I'm not aware of any data that shows that routine mosquito control
activities are decimating the butterflies," Rutz said. "Ideally, you
don't use mosquito chemicals at all, but in this situation, we're
looking at protecting public health. You can't say 100 percent of the
butterflies won't be impacted, but if there are impacts, our
experience shows they are very minimal."

 
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