[Leps-l] Unpublicized Monarch Overwintering Sites

[Paul Cherubini]

On Dec 25, 2013, at 1:49 PM, Charles Covell wrote:

> Photos of containers of Roundup were included in the story. 

Way back in 2007 the milkweed that used to grow within crop fields in the 
upper Midwest had already been killed off by Roundup 
http://imageshack.com/a/img690/6708/xq6c.jpg yet the monarch population 
in the upper Midwest remained relatively high* until the drought and heatwave of 
2012.   So it's entirely possible that in 2014 or 2015 monarch numbers
in the upper Midwest could recover to  2007-2011 levels because there 
havn't been any major reductions in the amount of milkweed available for 
the monarchs to use in the upper Midwest since 2007.  There has been
some milkweed loss on Conservation Reserve Program acreage (due
to conversion to row crops) but milkweed plants growing on CRP
acreage are so festooned with predators that monarch egg and caterpillar
survival is poor.

*this high in south-central Minnesota:

2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4e3S2sm13g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJCnU7PB9to

2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpEyRuh4lwg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iatYTlT1qYQ

Paul Cherubini
El Dorado, Calif.