[leps-talk] Re: Brower replies- The most recent ranting aboutmonarch butterfly conservation

Thu Oct 9 22:21:32 EDT 2003

Dammit, Woody.  I was just thinking about that after my last cynical post.
I was wondering where you and Mark were while I was beating these guys off
with a stick...  Apparently they can do it single-handedly.  Don't take this
out of context...  cb
----- Original Message -----
From: "Woody Woods" <woody.woods at umb.edu>
To: "Grkovich, Alex" <agrkovich at tmpeng.com>; "'Charles Bordelon '"
<legitintellexit at earthlink.net>; <neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk>;
<tils-leps-talk at yahoogroups.com>
Cc: <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>; <brower at sbc.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 9:04 PM
Subject: Re: [leps-talk] Re: Brower replies- The most recent ranting
aboutmonarch butterfly conservation

Not only from this list but also from the literature, I am increasingly
seeing the Monarch as our foremost charismatic weed species-- an
evolutionary compliment to D. plexippus, really-- an evolutionarily flexible
species, including (possible) subspecies, that has worked out a number of
strategies over its considerable geographic range.

There is so much to be learned here!

I really think this should make the Monarch a poster-lep for all camps.
Mostly, the hotly contested threads here have been about the eastern
N.A.-Mexico population. As important as that population is on all levels,
from conservation to classroom to taxonomy to physiology, it's not the only
Monarch population.

I'm asking-- shouldn't we be learning more about other less-studied
life-history/migratory patterns of the other populations of this overall
remarkably successful and innovative species? I think there are textbook
"box" lessons from this to be written yet.

Woody

*************************************************
William A. Woods Jr.
Department of Biology
University of Massachusetts Boston
100 Morrissey Blvd
Boston, MA 02125

Lab: 617-287-6642
Fax: 617-287-6650
*************************************************

> From: "Grkovich, Alex" <agrkovich at tmpeng.com>
> Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 17:52:47 -0400
> To: 'Charles Bordelon ' <legitintellexit at earthlink.net>,
> "'neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk '" <neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk>,
> "'tils-leps-talk at yahoogroups.com '" <tils-leps-talk at yahoogroups.com>
> Cc: "'leps-l at lists.yale.edu '" <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>,  "'brower at sbc.edu
'"
> <brower at sbc.edu>
> Subject: RE: [leps-talk] Re: Brower replies- The most recent ranting about
> monarch butterfly conservation
>
> I agree entirely with Charlie...this whole thing is getting pretty
> tiresome...and I was wondering the very same thing as he...what about the
> Mexican Government?
>
> Another thing that troubles me about Dr. Brower's post below is this: Why
> such an emotional introduction to his statement? Was Mr. Cherubimi
actually
> "ranting"? It did not appear that way to me...Mr. Cherubimi (and do not
> think that am picking sides here, because I'm not...habitat destruction is
a
> sad fact everywhere...not only in northern Mexico...it's a significant
> problem right here in northeastern Massachusetts)is and has been
presenting,
> with his own documentation...counterpoints to Dr. Brower...whatever the
> merits of these counterpoints...and unless I'm forgetting something, he
also
> accuses no one of "ranting"...
>
> And, who exactly are the "anti-conservationists"? Here's a question: Can a
> passionate Lepidopterist, professional or vocational (or in-between, as
some
> are on this list), an "anti-conservationist"? I think not...
>
> I myself am not, of course, hoping that the Monarch disappears...I only
wish
> to know the truth...and decade after decade of what is more and more
> appearing to be "the same old story" (that "the sky is falling"...) makes
me
> wonder and perhaps makes me even suspicious...
>
> And that matter of the $100 million just doesn't help...
>
> Again, Monarchs are all over the place here in New England...
>
> And that storm and cold front was a natural act, an act of God, if you
> will...not at all an issue of conservation...of course the monarch
survived
> it, the species has no doubt survivieed thousands of such storms...and
> perhaps even benefitted from that storm...and there are too many rumors
> making the rounds of "dead butterflies" coming to life when normal weather
> conditins returned, also rumors (backed up by photos, unless these are
> fraudulent) of certain folks trampling all over the piles of inanimate
> butterflies, supposedly to get "evidence" of the "disaster"...
>
> Alex
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles Bordelon
> To: neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk; tils-leps-talk at yahoogroups.com
> Cc: leps-l at lists.yale.edu; brower at sbc.edu
> Sent: 10/9/03 4:47 PM
> Subject: [leps-talk] Re: Brower replies- The most recent ranting about
> monarch butterfly conservation
>
> Are we to assume Monarchs are too stupid to find other sites?  All this
> talk
> and number-crunching is dung in the real world. What did house sparrows
> do
> before there were houses?  Barn swallows before barns?  Ratings,
> ratings,
> rantings...  So what?  You can't tell me such a successful insect
> couldn't
> adapt.  We'll destroy ourselves before every resource is depleted.  Go
> to
> the Mexican Government.  This whole Monarch business is not only moot,
> it's
> completely boring.  cb
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <neil at nwjones.demon.co.uk>
> To: <tils-leps-talk at yahoogroups.com>
> Cc: <leps-l at lists.yale.edu>; <brower at sbc.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 1:49 PM
> Subject: Brower replies- The most recent ranting about monarch butterfly
> conservation
>
>
>> Professor Brower asked me to pass on this message to these lists.
>>
>> Neil Jones
>>
>> From: Lincoln P. Brower brower at sbc.edu
>> Subject: The most recent ranting about monarch butterfly conservation
>> by Mr. Cherubini.
>>
>>
>> To whom it may concern:
>>
>> To those who may seriously consider taking Mr. Paul Cherubini's
>> October 2003 criticisms of L. P. Brower's recent (4 October 2003)
>> lecture to the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History in California,
>> I suggest perusing the following three scientific papers:
>>
>> 1) Brower, L.P., Kust, D.R., Rendon-Salinas, E., Serrano, E.G.,
>> Kust, K.R., Miller, J., Fernandez del Rey, C., &amp; Pape, K. (In
>> press  2003). Catastrophic winter storm mortality of monarch
>> butterflies in Mexico during January 2002. In: The Monarch Butterfly:
>> Biology and Conservation (Editors. K.M. Oberhauser  M.
>> Solensky). Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
>>
>> 2) Brower, L.P., Castilleja, G., Peralta, A., Lopez-Garcia, J.,
>> Bojorquez-Tapia, L., Diaz, S., Melgarejo, D.,  Missrie, M.
>> (2002). Quantitative changes in forest quality in a principal
>> overwintering area of the monarch butterfly in Mexico: 1971 to
>> 1999. Conservation Biology, 16, 346-359.
>>
>> 3) Bojorquez, L.A., Brower, L.P., Castilleja, G.,
>> Sánchez-Colón, S., Hernández, M., Calvert, W.H., Díaz, S.,
>> Gómez-Priego, P., Alcantar, G., Melgarejo, E.D., Solares, M.J.,
>> Gutiérrez, L., Juárez, M.d.L. (2003). Mapping expert
>> knowledge: redesigning the monarch butterfly biosphere reserve.
>> Conservation Biology, 17, 367 - 379.
>>
>> The first paper (still in press) documents the winter storm mortality
>> of overwintering monarch butterflies in Mexico that occurred in
>> January 2002. One quarter of a billion monarchs were estimated
>> to have been killed in two of several known colonies, all of which
>> were impacted by a powerful and widespread storm and cold
>> front. The second publication documents that the monarchs'
>> overwintering forest within the 1986 presidentially decreed reserve
>> has been degraded by 44% as well as heavily fragmented over a 28 year
>> period, through January 1999. The third publication describes the
>> process and rationale by which the new 2000 presidential decree
>> increased the supposedly protected overwintering area from 62 to 217
>> square miles. Research in progress with colleagues from the
>> University of Mexico, NASA, Lynchburg College and Sweet Briar College
>> indicates that extensive illegal logging is currently occurring
>> within the supposedly protected areas. When these data are published,
>> they will be available for public scrutiny.
>>
>> The exact number of years it will take for the current and increasing
>> logging to irreversibly disrupt the migration of the monarch's
>> eastern population is always an unknown. What we do know is
>> that the forests within the tiny area of Mexico in which hundreds of
>> millions of monarchs overwinter is being rapidly degraded.
>> Denial of this is yet another example of the ostrich-like behavior of
>> the more extreme members of the anti-conservation movement who choose
>> to obfuscate hard scientific evidence in order to advance their
>> political positions.
>>
>> Lincoln P. Brower
>> Research Professor of Biology
>> Sweet Briar College
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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