Record Low Monarch population expected in Mexico this winter.

[Chip Taylor]

Alex: Think Texas - and elsewhere in the SW - the origin of most of 
these migratory species. They crash with every spg drought in these 
areas followed by low numbers in the summer throughout the rest of 
the US and Canada. The fire ants are also a factor. The boom in 2001 
was the consequence of a long drought that depressed the FAs and 
other predators and parasites followed by fall and winter rains and a 
cool spg that provided ideal breeding conditions, and ecological 
release from predators and parasites, for many species that simply 
radiated north in April, May and June of 2001. The numbers of 
migrants seen in eastern KS last yr was truly extraordinary. This yr 
- predictably -as early as March - there were relatively few.



>
>
>In this particular point I agree with you. Virtually ALL migratory
>(actually, refer "them" also to the more proper term "dispersal") butterfly
>populations are way off all over the northeast and Midwest this summer, not
>just Monarchs. Maybe Painted ladies, American Painted Ladies, Red Admirals,
>Question Marks, Buckeyes, etc. etc. might ALL have been killed by the frost
>and "defoliating and deforesting" in Mexico.
>
>Last year (2001) was a banner year for all of these, and this year the
>opposite. This has happened before, too. A friend of mine from Vermont
>posted a couple of days ago on VT-LEPS that Monarchs were almost absent from
>VT during the period of 1950 to 1953, and I remember hardly seeing a Painted
>Lady in southwestern Ontario as a youth during the period of about 1960 to
>1965. So this isn't the first time, and I'm with Paul on this one entirely.
-- 

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