"dire straits faced by most of our butterfly fauna"

[Paul Cherubini]

patfoley wrote:

> Human-caused landscape fragmentation, habitat degradation, BT GE corn,
> pesticides and night lights may not be doing monarchs much harm. But
> most leps are not monarchs. Is this just a game you are playing, or do 
> you seriously think monarchs make a good model lep for conservation 
> problems?

Pat, it was only 3 months ago that a senior University of Kansas
entomology professor, Dr. Chip Taylor, proclaimed in the popular press that
"We have a major [Monarch Butterfly] conservation crisis"
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/17/HOGGDO3LLC1.DTL

And in a peer reviewed journal in 1989 Dr. Lincoln Brower 
predicted the extinction of the eastern USA monarch migration 
phenomenon by the year 2000.

> Art Shapiro has been tracking hundreds of species. He does not argue
> that all butterflies are in trouble.

Pat, Art Shapiro said: "DIRE straits faced by MOST of our butterfly 
fauna" [of the lower Sacramento Valley = about 90 species]

So Shapiro is saying MOST of those 90 species are in dire trouble. 
Here are Shapiro's species lists for his lower Sacramento Valley
study sites:

North Sacramento: http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/sites/north_sac
West Sacramento: http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/sites/west_sac
Rancho Cordova: http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/sites/rancho
Suisun Marsh: http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/sites/suisun
Gates Canyon: http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/sites/gates

Is it reasonable for Shapiro to proclaim most of these 80
species are in "dire straights"?  

Paul Cherubini
El Dorado, Calif.

 
 ------------------------------------------------------------ 

   For subscription and related information about LEPS-L visit:

   http://www.peabody.yale.edu/other/lepsl