Scott Shalaways The Wild Side article is always one of my GO TO Sunday reads in the newspaper. ALWAYS. Scott Shalaway is a plethora of knowledge and shares it with readers on Page 2B every Sunday morning. Today he was talking about Monarch butterflies. Now if you look at my photo album you know that I like more than just hunting and fishing. As a Master Naturalist I find the entire suite of wildlife ultimately interesting and that is why I am such a fanatic when it comes to early successional habitat...that type of habitat holds the most biodiversity of all habitat here in the Appalachian Uplands. Shalaway reported that Monarch butterflies MAY be on the rebound, emphasis on the may. For the last 20 years the monarch butterfly population has plunged 90%. Oh you hadnt heard? Of course not! There is no Young Forest Initiative or Early Successional Habitat Society to tell us how we need to lobby Congress or plead with a President to sign onto anything but wilderness and monuments. Now in all things great and small, Monarch butterflies, those beautiful orange and black spectacles of fields of milkweed are declining because the milkweed is in decline. Monsantos Roundup pesticide does a bang up job of killing milkweed. Farmers dont harvest milkweed...did you know we use to do just that? Well during WW II that is. In the pictures below I show you a milkweed field still in existence from World War II that has a passel of milkweed plants and a slew of Monarch butterflies every year. Outside of Marlinton, WV there existed, during WW II, a prison farm for German POWs. Milkweed was planted and captured Germans harvested the milkweed, for the filling in life preservers for US airmen and sailors. It would keep you afloat till it got drenched! This is a big area that I just love to stroll through at times. Like next week when the leaves begin to change if I can squeeze in the time. The plastic protectors you see are protecting trees from deer. That is a Monarch caterpillar in the last picture. The Monarchs are heading to Mexico now. They overwinter on just a few acres of land down there; 20 million butterflies per acre according to Shalaway. Here in the United States the species has lost 165 million acres of milkweed habitat according to Shalaways article. From herbicides and from fields becoming forest also. It does not take long for habitat to begin to mature. Dr. Lincoln Brower who began studying monarch butterflies in 1954, the year after I was born, is quoted in Scott Shalaways article as saying: Monarchs are in a deadly free fall, and the threats they face are now so large in scale Endangered Species Act protection is needed sooner rather than later, while there is still time to reverse the severe decline in the heart of their range. And everyone, that counted apparently, thought we just needed more mature forest I state with great sarcasm. However, I wish to thank USFS Wildlife Biologist Jay Martin for recognizing this area and working his magic to maintain this site while he worked for the Monongahela National Forest here in the Appalachian Uplands. Jay has moved on to the George Washington National Forest in Virginia now. WV-DNR Biologist Tom Dale, who has retired, kept this area thriving and I miss seeing Tom when I go up there. Scotts article should be on the Gazette-Mail website later today so Google Monarchs on the Rebound? later today. Oh and remember to tell some politicians and bureaucrats that we need a Young Forest Initiative not more Wilderness. Todays history lesson and biology all in one short piece!
Posted on: Sun, 14 Sep 2014 13:57:20 +0000
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