Monarch Migration Predicted to be Extinct within 16 years

Paul Cherubini monarch at saber.net
Mon Oct 6 03:21:25 EDT 2003


Some of you may recall back in 1988 and 1989 Dr. Lincoln
Brower predicted the extinction of the eastern USA monarch
migration phenomenon by the year 2000 due to forest thinning
at the overwintering sites in Mexico. Also, some of you may
have read a major paper Dr. Brower published in the Journal of the
Lepidopterist's Society in 1995 in which he predicted a serious
decline in the size of the monarch migration during the late 1990's
due to increasing herbicide use in the northern USA, where monarchs
breed during the summer.
Well neither of these predictions proved to be accurate and in fact,
yesturday, Dr. Brower gave a slide presentation to a group of
about 75 people in Pacific Grove, California at the Natural History
Museum and at one point said the size of monarch overwintering
population in Mexico during the winter of 2001-2002 was "slightly
above normal" !!
                                                                                                        
Well after such serious and repeated blunders in predicting the
extinction of the monarch migration, has Dr. Brower decided
it may not be appropriate to make such profound doomsayer
predictions which deeply frighten and worry thousands of butterfly
enthusiasts?  Nope.
At yesturday's slide presentation in Pacific Grove, Calif. Dr. Brower
showed the audience this picture
http://www.saber.net/~monarch/extinction.jpg of how he is now
predicting the monarch migration will collapse by the year 2019,
mainly because of forest thinning in Mexico.  Dr. Brower also told the
audience that the monarch could be saved from doom if the govenment
would provide over $100,000,000 to funding to monarch conservation
organizations.  Dr. Brower is cofounder and chairman of the Monarch
Butterfly Sanctuary Foundation.
                                                                                                                  
Paul Cherubini

 
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