"dire straits faced by most of our butterfly fauna"

[patfoley]

Paul,

By now you surely realize that monarchs do not typify butterflies. 
Monarchs are highly vagile, weedy butterflies that follow milkweeds 
around the world.

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.

I only return to this obvious point, because you seem to ignore it. Is 
this just a game you are playing, or do you seriously think monarchs 
make a good model lep for conservation problems?

Art Shapiro has been tracking hundreds of species. He does not argue 
that all butterflies are in trouble. Bill Gates is doing great, but I 
would not gauge the economy by his income.

Incidentally, butterfly populations along the American River in 
Sacramento seem low (compared to the average) to me this spring ... 
except for Pipevine Swallowtails.

Patrick
patfoley at csus.edu

Paul Cherubini wrote:
> Roger Kuhlman wrote:
>
>   
>> I too found this article excellent and glad it was posted. We here in
>> southeast Michigan have not been having droughts but we have a huge
>> problem with habitat destruction and isolated patches of habitat. I
>> wish we had detailed, rigourous observations going back 35 years here.
>> I am sure they would also show a serious decline in butterfly
>> populations.
>>     
>
> Roger, if the habitat destruction has been "huge" then you could 
> document it via the historical aerial photos that are available in your 
> larger local university libraries (map depts. of the libraries) and 
> compare them with recent Google Earth photos.  
>
> Google Earth is a cool new tool that can be used to show what
> is really going on with butterfly habitats.  For example, on the
> south island of New Zealand a couple entomologists have written
> a phamplet about the monarch overwintering sites in the city
> of Chirstchurch. In the phamplet they say the monarch numbers
> seem to be increasing:
> http://www.ccc.govt.nz/parks/theenvironment/MonarchButterflies.pdf
>
> Here's the general location of the city of Christchurch, New Zealand:
> http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/4af/ccisland.jpg
> And here's an aerial view of the general location of the three
> monarch overwintering sites in Christchurch :
> http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/4af/ccover.jpg
>
> Here is what the phamplet says about the St. James Park
> overwintering site in Christchurch:
> http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/4af/stjam.jpg
> And here is an actual Google Earth photo of the site:
> http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/4af/ccstj.jpg
>
> Here is what the phamplet says about  the Abberley Park
> overwintering site in Christchurch:
> http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/4af/abb.jpg
> And here is an actual Google Earth photo of the site:
> http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/4af/ccaber.jpg
>
> Here is what the phamplet says about  the  Ruru Lawn
> Cemetery overwintering site in Christchurch:
> http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/4af/ruru.jpg
> And here is an actual Google Earth photo of the site:
> http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/4af/ccruru.jpg
>
> Thus Google Earth provides indisputable physical evidence
> that monarch butterflies in New Zealand are choosing and 
> using man made overwintering habitats in an extremely 
> urbanized setting even though much more natural and 
> rural habitats are available nearby.  
>
> Paul Cherubini
> El Dorado, Calif.
>
>  
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