[Leps-l] FW: New report about status of monarch butterflies in North America

[Paul Cherubini]

Dennis Schlicht wrote:

> Yes there are still milkweeds. The Monarchs that do emerge are
> very soon subjected to aerial spraying with insecticides and
> fungicides over most every acre of the corn belt. Add to that the
> poison pollen and plants from the systemic neonics and what
> we have is a collapse of many species in the corn belt .

That spraying also occurred in the pre-GMO crop days
of the 1990’s and earlier decades and yet monarch
butterflies were spectacularly abundant despite the spraying.

Today along the field edges of the corn crops in the
upper Midwest that are grown from neonicotinoid coated
seeds one still sees the milkweed plants that set alot
of seed pods like this:
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imagegainer.com_images_PaulCherubini_podspoll.jpg&d=AwIF-g&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=tVAKMFPe3UCcsMWUFXo0FeX0xe1JUAj77B74DAI3DKI&m=IH9IhHx7LeFEo20sT_qCKYaQgiWD2wRBdS0xY2acjpY&s=1vD05sxAZourPqWA1Jzb_kLdH8rtzugit6JXKrP8CDs&e= 

So the pollinators must still be common.  And they are indeed common:
https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imagegainer.com_images_PaulCherubini_minnb.jpg&d=AwIF-g&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=tVAKMFPe3UCcsMWUFXo0FeX0xe1JUAj77B74DAI3DKI&m=IH9IhHx7LeFEo20sT_qCKYaQgiWD2wRBdS0xY2acjpY&s=36oBnZNVLu7tmtohbMQdMcDGewQnEu8ZdfpOHC6AX3A&e= 

Paul Cherubini
El Dorado, Calif.