Government views Monarch Butterfly Releases as a threat toWesternMilkweeds

[Anne Kilmer]

1_iron wrote:

> Stan and all:
> 
> Paul Cherubini used the term "weedy species" in reference to the Monarch,
> which elicited from Stan:
> 
>  I also have to wonder about the use of terms like 'weedy species'.
>  Normally, a weed is a plant growing where we do not want it to grow.
>  Used in reference to the Monarch implies to the general public that it
>  is a pest we do not want.  Do we really want to convey this kind of
>  message?  Doesn't the use of such terms have a tendency to mislead?
> 
> I read the original post - correctly, I think - with the word "weedy"
> meaning "hardy." I don't think anyone was mislead.
> 
> We need more Anne Kilmer posts and less picky-picky.
> 
> Jim Taylor
> 
> PS: Someone once said that if you plant, feed, and water it and it dies,
> it's a flower. Otherwise, it is a weed.
> 

Well, I hate to admit when Paul is right, but the Monarch is indeed a 
weedy species, acclaimed for it, and Paul explained it patiently and 
nicely.

I  could go on and on about the Monarch being favored by the expansion 
of populated areas, able to colonize wasteland and bombed-over areas ... 
Milkweed users, along with such opportunistic invaders as the 
passionflower gang, flourish at the expense of the rarer, pickier 
butterflies.
I hate to see our passion expended on the plight of the Monarch, when it 
is making out like gangbusters, and we are neglecting the scrubby little 
corners where the true treasures live.
We can't claim that what's good for Monarchs is good for butterflies in 
general. And a recent copy of Butterfly Gardening, a NABA publication, 
suggests that planting milkweed creates a butterfly garden.
At times like this, I think of the teacher who was planning and planting 
  a butterfly garden for her school ... some 15 years ago, when most 
schools were not yet doing that. She told me that first she would have 
the saw palmettoes bulldozed, see, and then ...
Which is where I started screaming and did not stop until I had her 
attention. You don't take out something good, and real, to replace it 
with something else, also good, but artificial.
  God plants lovely butterfly gardens, though with a sad lack of 
political correctness. We certainly get to edit them, but it seems to me 
wrong to scrape it all down and start fresh.

I want to see kids rearing endangered butterflies in their school 
gardens. Maybe they start with releasing Monarchs, but I want to see 
them speeding down the highway towards biodiversity, and, in fact, I do 
see this happening.
When it comes to picky-picky, I wrote the book. ;-)
Anne Kilmer
South Florida and Mayo


 
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