Non Migratory Tagging Program

[Kathy Reinertsen]

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 www.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 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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