ENDANGERED BUTTERFLYS

[Bob Parcelles,Jr.]

Greetings:

The following might prove pertinent (or inflaming,
whatever).

Bob Parcelles, Jr.
Pinellas Park, FL
-------------------------------------------------------

A Monarch's Ransom 

Don't let a chance to save the butterfly flutter by   
 
by Gary Paul Nabhan, Writers on the Range 
09.10.99 


A couple of weeks ago, while the federal government
was removing peregrine falcons from the list of
endangered species, I was out watching the first
monarch butterflies migrate through the desert on
their way to Mexico. I saw both the migratory monarchs
and their homebody cousins, the butterflies known as
Queens, hovering around the lovely flowers of a
milkweed native to Western farmlands and ranchlands.
And I listened to the radio as Interior Secretary
Bruce Babbitt recounted the story of how peregrines
bounced back from the brink of extinction, thanks to
the banning of the pesticide DDT and the enforcement
of the Endangered Species Act.

   
Peregrine falcon, happy and DDT-free. 

I felt a certain elation at hearing that there are now
more than 1,600 pairs of DDT-free peregrines. At the
same time, I realized that endangered butterflies face
threats similar to what peregrines faced in the 1960s,
before DDT was banned. One threat is a toxin that can
be found in the pollen of new varieties of corn. This
toxin can kill the caterpillars of butterflies,
including six federally listed endangered species as
well as the monarch (whose spectacular migration is
considered an endangered phenomenon), when they feed
upon milkweed plants at the edge of blooming corn
fields.

The toxic pollen comes from several new genetically
engineered crops known as BT corn, planted this summer
on more than 20 million acres in America's heartland.
The agrochemical industry claims that BT corn can save
farmers from suffering losses caused by several crop
pests, including the European and Southwestern corn
borers. But though BT corn is temporarily effective in
repelling these pests, it does so at a high price to
both farmers and wildlife. 

You wouldn't know that from listening to the
agrochemical industry. When scientists from Cornell
University first confirmed that BT corn poses a real
threat to monarchs and other imperiled butterflies
this spring, the industry responded in much the same
way it did when Rachel Carson shouted the first
warning cries about DDT. It claimed that lab studies
had little significance in the real world and that
monarch caterpillars would hardly be exposed to the BT
corn toxins because most milkweeds do not grow in or
near cornfields.

   
Pollinating pals. 

On a recent trip to St. Louis, I wondered if the
industry's publicists who live there ever go outside.
Over a 150-mile stretch between Chicago and St. Louis,
I saw 45 miles of cornfields where milkweeds were
extremely common within 10 feet of the corn itself. At
least along this one corridor frequented by migratory
Monarchs, caterpillars can be easily exposed to the
toxic pollen raining down on them.

The agrochemical industry has also tried to discredit
the scientists' report, which was published in Nature
magazine, as sloppy work. Curiously, it then attempted
to hire some of the same scientists who published the
report, announcing that it took concerns about
monarchs seriously. At the same time, biotechnology
advocates whined that BT corn was being given a bum
rap: Toxic BT corn pollen kills far fewer monarchs
than what pesticides would kill if BT corn were not
available, they said. But to date, there is no
indication that the presence of BT corn in the field
corn market has markedly reduced the total amount of
pesticides being dowsed on field corn. It is
agribusiness as usual down on the corporate farm.

The EPA should have consulted with the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service long before permitting Monsanto and
Novartis to release BT corn for planting on millions
of acres. Now that the cat is out of the bag, the EPA
and the U.S. Department of Agriculture should at least
conduct their own field studies of BT corn's effects
on endangered butterflies. But they continue to
stonewall, saying they are waiting for the
agrochemical industry's proprietary studies of BT corn
and monarchs before they announce any policy changes.
As one Fish and Wildlife Service employee anonymously
warned, the EPA is letting the wolves tend the hen
house.

Crops genetically engineered to produce toxins require
as much scrutiny as do other kinds of pesticides,
especially when some of the non-target organisms
exposed to them are federally protected. The EPA must
be urged to suspend permits for BT corn until it can
show that the crops do not pose additional risks to
endangered butterflies.

I'm glad the peregrine falcon has soared off the
endangered species list. Now let's help our
magnificent pollinators do the same. 

- - - - - - - - - 

  Gary Paul Nabhan is a contributor to Writers on the
Range, a service of High Country News, based in
Paonia, Colo. He is co-author of The Forgotten
Pollinators and grows butterfly-attracting gardens and
native food crops at his home near Tucson, Ariz.

######################################################

=====
Bob Parcelles, Jr
Pinellas Park, FL
RJP Associates <rjpassociates at yahoo.com>
rjparcelles at yahoo.com
http://rainforest.care2.com/welcome?w=976131876
"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."- Confucius

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