Recent Boston Globe "monarchs are threatened" article

[Paul Cherubini]

As you read though the recent July 6 Boston Globe article below, consider 
the following important facts the scientists & conservationists have
left out with the predictable result that the public gets subliminally 
dumbed down into thinking the monarch migration is seriously
threatened by human activity: 

1. Illegal logging has not been occurring in the monarch cluster
areas and therefore has not "opened the forest canopy to winter 
storms" as implied by the article.

2. While it's true the new herbicide resistant crops like corn and 
soybeans, first introduced in 1996, have helped farmers improve 
weed control, it's also true the size of the monarch migratory /
overwintering population has continued to be high and stable overall:
http://www.saber.net/~monarch/mexicopopsize.jpg.  Indeed, for 
many decades farmers have been continually improving weed 
control in their crops using various technologies yet as the graph 
shows, monarchs are as abundant as ever. So how can any monarch 
scientist reasonably consider herbicide resistant crops a "threat" to 
the continued existence of the monarch migration?  

In 1999 Dr. Chip Taylor speculated even more profoundly 
about the threat posed by herbicide resistant crops:
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1200/is_1_155/ai_57770149
"Open fields of corn and soybeans are popular spots for milkweed, 
but the plant may soon be wiped out as crops are bio-engineered to
survive pesticides designed to kill all weeds, says Taylor. Loss 
of the milkweed would threaten the monarch's survival."

3. Heavy storm kills at the monarch overwintering sites
are nothing new.   They have been happening two or three times every 
decade, on average, at the overwintering sites in both California 
and Mexico for as long as anyone can remember.  And each time 
the monarch population has ALWAYS recovered within 8 months. 
So how can any monarch scientist reasonably consider these 
periodic heavy storm related winter kills a "threat" to the  continued
existence of the monarch migration?  

Paul Cherubini, El Dorado, Calif.
=============================================
Butterfly Migration Route Threatened by Weather, Industry

By Carolyn Johnson, Boston Globe Correspondent July 6, 2004

Soaring and gliding on delicate orange-and-black wings, three monarch
butterflies flew all the way from Vermont to central Mexico last fall.

Researchers recently confirmed that the insects they had
tagged in Vermont in September were the same ones
they found in El Rosario, Mexico, -- roughly 2,400 miles away -- in
December. The discovery marked the first confirmed arrivals of Vermont
butterflies since a lone tagged specimen was found in 1999.

A monarch ''weighs half a gram. It has a really tiny brain," said Chip 
Taylor, director of Kansas University's Monarch Watch, which tries 
to build interest in the butterfly through efforts like the Vermont 
tagging. ''It's sort of a magical feat that these butterflies perform, in a 
way."

In recent years, naturalists and biologists have expressed concern about 
the future of this unique migratory phenomenon, now threatened by a 
variety of global environmental changes.

During the last several years, demand has climbed for softwood trees 
like the Oyamel fir, which serve as winter bungalows for an estimated 
half-billion butterflies in the mountains of central Mexico. Illegal 
logging within the butterfly reserves has opened the forest canopy
to winter storms.

''It's like poking big holes in your winter coat," said Bryan Pfeiffer, a
consulting biologist for the Vermont Institute of Natural Science, 
who tags every butterfly he can find.

Within the United States, habitat may also be threatened as farmers 
plant new herbicide-resistant crops and liberally spray chemicals, 
threatening the milkweed that provides an essential food source for 
monarch caterpillars.

A year-old study published in the Proceedings of the National 
Academy of Sciences forecast the type of wet and cold weather 
for monarch territory that could kill huge numbers of butterflies.
 ''Right now we may be looking at the very beginning of this 
impact," Taylor said.

This past winter, 70 percent of the population died, he said, as
moisture from the Pacific Ocean was drawn into central Mexico, 
soaking, and then freezing the insects.

 
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