First recovery of the IBBA tagging program

Kathy Reinertsen bfly4u at swbell.net
Fri Apr 5 23:34:59 EST 2002


Great news all!
Today at 6:00 PM CST, Chloe Sariego ( 7 years old) mom called and
reported that tag number A002597 was found at  540 Bay Point Rd. Miami
FL  33137   Latitude 25.8172, Longitude 80.1888.
The male Monarch had expired in their butterfly garden.  The Monarch was
healthy and two days old at the time of the release.
This butterfly was released with 9 others by Margarita Ashman, a
commercial breeder and a member of the IBBA. Margarita released these
butterflies on April 2nd, at The Butterfly Habitat Garden of Bayshore
Lutheran Church. About 0.1 miles from the recovery location.
Margarita had asked for tags early for her release on Easter Sunday.
Regrettably the tags did not arrive till Monday.  She made the decision
to release the butterflies on Tuesday to help the IBBA tagging program.
The butterfly is know the property of Chloe's school. They are currently
studying the Monarch butterfly.
Thank you
Ed Reinertsen
IBBA tagging program coordinator

The IBBA will start Phase II on April 8, 2002. A pilot tagging program
sponsored and designed independently without outside funding by the
IBBA.  The program is designed as a voluntary pilot program and will be
open to all butterfly breeders.  We will collect credible, raw, basic
data, but will not analyze it. Ed and Kathy Reinertsen will be the
coordinators of this program, under the direction of the IBBA Board of
Directors, and will publish reported data as it is received at
w.butterflybreeders.org.  Data collected from the recorded tags will aid

scientist and researchers by identifying captive bred Monarchs, monitor
the movement, and longevity of the captive bred Monarchs during non
migratory months. The tagging program activities will end on August 1,
2002.  As per Dr. Chip Taylor's schedule, by ending the tagging before
August 15 above 42 degrees (middle Iowa) or September 5 at 39 degrees
(Lawrence, KS) .The IBBA's program is in partnership with the scientific

community and the USDA. Why is the IBBA doing this?  Researchers have
voiced concerns that release of captive bred Monarchs could interfere
with the counts of naturally occurring butterflies in population
dynamics studies. Researchers are also interested in studies of non
migratory populations
This program will help provide data on the dispersion of captive bred
Monarchs. The IBBA feels that it is important to cooperate and
participate as partners with the research community and the USDA.
In order for the program to produce valid and useful information, it is
important that a large number of breeders participate.  Whether you are
a member of the IBBA, an independent commercial breeder, or a hobbyist,
we are encouraging you to participate in order to provide a large enough

sampling to have relevancy. The New IBBA round tag will have the same
size, (9 mm or .350") lamination, face stock, adhesive, and tooling as
the latest Monarch Watch tag.  Changes in the IBBA tag are: Single
sequentially numbered labels with a six digit tracking number.  Yellow
with black lettering that will read:
      IBBA
   Please call
1-866-202-9844
    A000001
We made the decision to use a toll free phone number to have the best
recovery sampling for valid results.  Yellow tags were chosen to
distinguish from the other tagging programs that are tagging
wild Monarchs.   The IBBA does not want to interfere with the counts of
the wild butterflies in population dynamics studies.  The new tag will
make it easy to provide data on the movements of captive bred Monarchs
and aid in studies of non migratory Monarchs. You would place the IBBA
tag in the same manner as other tags, over the discal cell on the
underside on the hind wing.  This method is less harmful to the
butterfly and the rate of tag recovery is higher than for Monarchs
tagged on the wing margins. The tags will be made available at a cost of

$5.00 per 100 tags.  Kathy and I as coordinators of this program are
doing this without payment and have no financial interest in the release

industry.  We will not be raising butterflies this season so as not to
jeopardize the credibility
of the data collected. To order your tags, we would encourage you to
plan ahead and send your
check made payable to the IBBA with your request to:
The IBBA c/o Kathy Reinertsen
1617 Wisteria Way
Richardson, Texas  75080
This will help keep the cost down.  We will batch checks and send them
to the IBBA treasurer after making copies. With your order Kathy and I
will assign you a four digit identification number to address the
confidentiality / privacy issues and send it to you with your tags, data

sheets, and instructions. Please complete the data sheets as soon as
possible and fax them to 972-680-0023 so that we will have the history
of the reported Monarch. This program is about collecting credible
data.  There are many researchers that will use this raw basic data if
they know that it is credible.  The last thing we want is to have the
tagging program shot down on the basis of lack of documentation.
The total number of Monarchs that any and all breeders sell and the
amount of tags purchased by the IBBA will be considered a question that
will not be answered. The only information posted on the IBBA web site
would be reported Monarchs.  This can be done without jeopardizing the
credibility of the data collected.  We will ask for the reported
butterfly to be sent if possible to Kathy and I for only one reason,
that is to mount the Monarch and present the butterfly as rewards for
outstanding
achievements with this tagging program.  Because this is a non migratory

tagging program, payment will not be made for recovered Monarchs for
obvious reasons. A lot of people have unselfishly worked very hard to
put all of this together and it has the potential to generate a great
deal of basic data for the scientific community to analyze.  The IBBA
Board of Directors is excited about this program and realizes that this
will be a new frontier for the IBBA.  Many questions remain unanswered
about Monarch populations.  We need data to answer these questions and
we need your
help!  Only through your participation will we be able to obtain
sufficient reports and observations to answer these questions.

Thank You,
Ed Reinertsen
IBBA Tagging Program Coordinator














 
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