NABA says selling wedding Monarchs = selling cigarettes & pornography

[Paul Cherubini]

Snips from yesturday's front page Wall Street Journal Article
http://interactive.wsj.com/fr/emailthis/retrieve.cgi?id=SB1010964326633546440.djm

About the same time that butterfly breeding was taking wing, though, so
was something called"nonconsumptive butterflying." Nonconsumptive
butterfliers are butterfly watchers, gardeners and photographers -- not 
catchers -- and their leader is Jeffrey Glassberg. Mr. Glassberg took
early retirement from his career as a microbiologist in New Jersey to 
devote himself to butterflies. He's now the president of the North American 
Butterfly Association, a 4,500-member hobbyists' group. He writes
butterfly books, leads butterfly tours, and hates the notion of commercially
raising and releasing butterflies.

 "It's clearly cruel and terrible behavior," he says, likening it to selling 
cigarettes and pornography: "It's about some people trying to make
 money doing something that's awfully bad."

The butterfly association fears that commercially raised Monarchs 
could alter the genetic make-up  of the native flock, or that hand-released 
butterflies -- those popping out of a box at a wedding, for example -- might 
be navigationally confused and unable to find their way to their wintering
grounds. Mr. Glassberg's chief concern is that farm-raised butterflies
could spread disease to native butterflies, or even foster the development 
of new diseases. There's no proof they ever have done that, he concedes, 
"but there's no way to prove they're going to cause a disaster until they do,
 and then it's too late."

 
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