Monarch Butterflies

The government is wrong, naturally. Yesterday there was a diary on Daily Kos praising the new $3.2 million government program to protect the monarch butterfly after the findings that 1 billion of them are missing. I raised the question of Monsanto's Roundup being the real problem. One GMO protector told me to "go make puppets." Many bloggers accepted this campaign very happily. Well this morning there it is on Common Dreams, an article saying the same thing that I did but expanding the issue very nicely. The government wants to keep its cake and eat it too. EPA wants to keep permitting the use of millions of pounds of dangerous herbicides while at the same time trying to save millions of monarch butterflies by getting small farmers and citizens to plant milkweed.


Federal Campaign to Save Monarch Fails to Address Root Cause of Decline

Without addressing herbicide-resistant GMO crops, 'monarch populations will not rebound to resilient, healthy levels,' says pollinator expert

A $3.2 million campaign to save the imperiled monarch butterfly, announced Monday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), fails to address the root cause of its decline and therefore does not go far enough to save the iconic species, says the Center for Food Safety.

The butterfly's decline has been linked to the proliferation of glyphosate, a primary ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup and one of the very few herbicides that kills milkweed. The monarch exclusively lays its eggs on plants in the milkweed family.
[...]
"While funding for efforts to restore milkweed habitat are essential to the monarch butterfly's survival, without addressing the eradication of milkweed within agricultural fields, monarch populations will not rebound to resilient, healthy levels," said Larissa Walker, pollinator campaign director at Center for Food Safety.

"Research has shown that monarch butterflies lay up to four times more eggs on milkweed within agricultural fields, and unfortunately, this vital breeding habitat has been destroyed by herbicides used in conjunction with genetically engineered crops," she continued, adding that "listing monarch butterflies as threatened under the Endangered Species Act is essential to their survival."

Monsanto needs to be reined in while we still have time.
Here are more links on the use of GMO pesticide in the U.S.
Impacts of genetically engineered crops on pesticide use in the U.S. -- the first sixteen years

This is from 1999!
Toxic pollen from widely planted, genetically modified corn can kill monarch butterflies, Cornell study shows

Herbicides for GMOs Driving Monarch Butterfly Populations to 'Ominous' Brink

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MarilynW's picture

Planting milkweed is still a very good thing to do. I am saying it's not enough because the milkweed killed by Monsanto's herbicide will outnumber individual plantings. The use of Roundup on GMO crops has been increasing every year.

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To thine own self be true.

NCTim's picture

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

MarilynW's picture

i'm watching it again.

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To thine own self be true.

Big Al's picture

Fish and Wildlife, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Park Service are servants to the corporations.
It's all part of the same game, the Directors of those agencies have their offices and national staffs in D.C. They're
all part of the lobbyist process with Congress and Senate so anything they do is subjected to those influences. Monsanto
obviously is very powerful and has powerful backing from our "representatives" who make the FWS "do the right thing".

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MarilynW's picture

Now even Forbes Magazine is warning about the increasing use of these pesticides after many articles in favor of GMO crops. When politicians are champions of corporations and corporations are paying for political campaigns, the vicious circle keeps on revolving.

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To thine own self be true.

Big Al's picture

working for the Forest Service for 20 years. I was a Regional Program Manager so I had many high levels contacts
including at the national office. Everything in D.C. becomes infected. It's that "Potomac Fever" thing. There have been
vain attempts by some agencies to get the hell out of D.C. but it never goes anywhere.

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MarilynW's picture

But then I saw this picture of my grandson on the court with the Harlem Globetrotters, sorry for the interruption. I'll post it again on EB.

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To thine own self be true.

MarilynW's picture

I was too excited.

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Big Al's picture

Good memory. I never got to go but remember watching the earlier teams in the sixties on TV.

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Tammany Tiger's picture

They were the team that lost over 14,000 games to the Globetrotters over the years. The Generals' coach was Red Klotz, who died last summer.

Klotz was not just a beloved sports figure, but he inspired an entire generation of Democratic Party consultants, Bob Shrum in particular.

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in the early 70's at our local high school. They didn't play the Generals, they instead played a team made up of Green Bay Packer players. It wasn't the Globetrotter's all-star roster of players, more like their second string and the same with the Packers, all second stringers, but it was very entertaining. They did all the tricks that Meadowlark and Curly had made famous, it just wasn't them doing it. I'll leave it to your imagination as to who won the game.

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gulfgal98's picture

several (three, if I remember correctly) of the Globetrotters came to the local mall for a free demonstration. I was in the crowd and they were picking people out to participate in some of the basic tricks. One of the Globetrotters was from the area which may be why they came to the mall. I wanted to be picked so I looked the Globetrotter straight in the eyes as he scanned the audience. On his third time by my way, he chose me. I was so excited because I "learned" how to do one of their fancy bounce passes.

FYI, I am basically a ham at heart so I have used that same technique to get chosen from the audience on other occasions. I figure that they want people from the audience who are willing to participate, so they read faces. Blum 3

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy

NCTim's picture

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The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. - Friedrich Nietzsche -

MarilynW's picture

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To thine own self be true.

MarilynW's picture

Here's my son's correction:

Wait till I get a hold of him!

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kharma's picture

FWIW, I HR'd bernardpliers here:
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1363564/55631641#c65
for being a dick.

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There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties.. This...is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.--John Adams

Tammany Tiger's picture

Sorry, couldn't resist.

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MarilynW's picture

There are a few Monsanto and GMO protectors on DKos and they are really nasty in their comments. If they want to protect GMO's & Monsanto they could at least be polite about their insane position.

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To thine own self be true.

Unabashed Liberal's picture

and thanks for this diary.

I remember remarking about the fact that I rarely see butterflies [at EB a while back], and Joe mentioned that many species of them are nearing extinction.

It is so sad--they are so beautiful.

Mollie

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.

IdealistCynic's picture

There are over 30 million acres of lawns and they use the same or even more pesticides than farmland, including higher quantities of 2 -4 d which is even more toxic than Roundup. Can you imagine replacing just half of these chemical and energy intensive landscapes with a combination of native landscapes and food producing permaculture plantings. Many millions of these acres could be planted with the regionally native milkweed species, plus provide the diversity for many other species, not just monarch butterflies.. I have a native planting in my yard that is just 20 × 30 feet, while supporting over 30 plant species and their attendant pollinators and grazers. From lawns to farms, the best approach to this problem, besides reducing chemical usage, is to promote diversity within and among species.

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Tammany Tiger's picture

I have no doubt that many of my neighbors would like to see failure to keep up one's lawn upgraded from from an ordinance violation to a Class A felony.

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IdealistCynic's picture

Maintaining an ecocidal home landscape should be a Class A felony. And it is possible to go native and/or plant edible landscaping while both making it look attractive and having lawn for play area or entertaining. I have both lawn and native landscapes, plus ornamental shrubs, trees, and mixed ornamental plant beds plants of varying height that complement each other , plus stone work. And, yes I have three species of native milkweed. None of my neighbors complain, rather they complement me. The other benefits of a high diversity landscape is that there is always colorful flowers or foliage from March through November.

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MarilynW's picture

too bad it wasn't the useful kind of grass. Maybe that's for future evolution.

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To thine own self be true.

AoT's picture

would think that pesticides would kill butterflies. I mean, they aren't even pests, duh.

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Cordelia Lear's picture

I've been following the plight of the monarch for some time as we live fairly close to Point Pelee Park in Ontario. In fact one of my friend's parents owned a cottage just a mile away from the park which cancelled it's annual butterfly count last fall because of a lack of butterflies.

However until your diary I had not considered adding milkweed to our garden. I was going to give it an overhaul this spring and this is the perfect thing to get me started. Thank you.

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"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak." --Paul Wellstone

MarilynW's picture

We should plant milkweed especially since you seem to be in an area of the monarch's determined migratory route. There are so many links on Monarchs online, it gives me hope that so many people are interested and maybe the Monarchs will not become extinct after all.

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Cordelia Lear's picture

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"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak." --Paul Wellstone

Cordelia Lear's picture

There is a butterfly conservatory on the grounds of the Niagra Parks Botanical Gardens. MrLear and I visited there some years ago during a trip to the Shaw Festival Theatre. It was absolutely stunning and worth every penny of admission. I highly recommend it. I also highly recommend the theatre.

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"Never separate the life you live from the words you speak." --Paul Wellstone

joe shikspack's picture

IMG_7196db-s

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MarilynW's picture

Beautiful shot, thank you

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joe shikspack's picture

this past year (2014) i saw only two monarchs in my backyard all summer. we have milkweed and butterfly bush and quite a number of other pollinator-friendly plants. we still get a reduced but decent number of swallowtails, an assortment of other butterflies and sphinx moths, but the numbers seem to decline every year as do the numbers of honeybees which have dropped precipitously.

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

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Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.