"dire straits faced by most of our butterfly fauna" - Google Earth

[drdn at mail.utexas.edu]

As Paul notes, the current revised edition of Google Earth is very useful for
locating and evaluating habitat characteristics. The images presented are
however of different ages and resolution. Image quality is rather good for part
of Central Texas and South Wales where individual trees and grassland textures
are visible. Images for some other areas such as the Scilly Isles and some
Arctic islands have much lower resolution. The date of images is not that
recent. My quarter acre in Austin was imaged in December of 2004 because I see
plastic sheets over my butterfly and vegetable gardens for frost risk, my old
Cavalier sedan is parked behind the house and I donated that to the Lung
Association before December 31st of that year, and the roof of my greenhouse
had not been installed.
   I am in the process of looking up all the places I have collected over the
years (since 1950) and adding Latitude and Longitude to my gazetteer of
localities. Google Earth displays the coordinates of the cursor in the line at
the bottom of the page.
   It looks like the user can post pictures that are accessible from the map.
..........Chris Durden


Quoting Paul Cherubini <monarch at saber.net>:

> 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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