Ph.D harassment or accountability?

[Paul Cherubini]

Monarchs began leaving the overwintering sites in Mexico about
12 days ago.  Mike Quinn has received numerous reports 
suggesting the butterflies have already reached southern Texas.

The size of the migration looks to be pretty good. For example, 
Mike Quinn received the following two reports of hundreds of 
monarchs sighted;
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Texbutterfliers,
Benton Basham ,myself, and others saw hundreds of Monarchs
on March 15 and March 16, 2002 in the Gomez Farias area of 
Tamaulipas.  In fact they were one of the most numerous 
butterflies we saw during our six days in the field, and 
became very common on the above reported dates.

Sincerely, Derek Muschalek
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Mike,

We observed two groups of Monarchs coming through the park 
yesterday, Wednesday 3/20.  Both groups looked to be around 
100 individuals each. Hope this helps.

Darrell

Darrell L. Echols
Resources Management Specialist
National Park Service
Padre Island National Seashore  [near Corpus Christi, Texas]
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Now for a little Ph.D accountability;

I wish to remind everyone how frightened and worried the Ph.D's
made us feel about the monarch situation in Mexico just one month ago
Example;

On Feb. 12, 2002 Dr. Chip Taylor made the following worrisome comments
on his website in which he speculated it "could take several years" for 
the monarch population to recover from the January freeze in Mexico:

Chip wrote:
> The bottom line for now is as follows: If there were 1.29 hectares, 
> or fewer, butterflies at Chincua and Rosario at the end of January 
> and if the outlying colonies were hit as hard or harder, this means 
> that end of January pop this yr is less than half as large as it was 
> last year at this time - a time when the pop was at its known all 
> time low. If the remaining butterflies are in poor condition, the 
> recovery could take several yrs.  The conditions this coming spring 
> are not as favorable as they were last yr. The fire ants population 
> in the south are up and soil moisture is down over much of the 
> Midwest and these factors limit the growth of monarch population."

 
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