Dave Green wrote:

> Butterflies have no legal protection that I know of, though damage
> is done to them (as well, along with many other organisms, so the
> long term effect of these massive spray programs will have many
> repercussions).  Many of us know what it's like to see bee kills.
> Here is one [southern Minnesota] community's experience with a
> [monarch]butterfly kill:
> http://www.mankatofreepress.com/archives/2000/000826/story1.html

Actually, Dave, it is a banner year for monarch butterflies in southern
Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota. Below is how Thea Miller Ryan
of Sioux Falls, South Dakota described the situation on Aug 31 to
a monarch butterfly discussion list:

> We are having an incredible year for tagging. We are getting hundreds, yes,
> hundreds of phone calls from people, telling us about their yards full
> of monarchs. I think this is the heaviest concentration of monarchs we
> have seen in the 4 years we have been tagging.
>The calls are coming from southeastern Minnesota, including Luvurne, Hills,
>and Blue Mound. Iowa calls are from Inwood area. South Dakota calls are
>fromSioux Falls (both urban and rural areas), Dell Rapids, Rowena, Lyons,
>Renner, Beresford, Canton, Brandon, Lake Vermillion, Colton, Lennox, Tea,
>Parker, Humboldt, Hartford, Aberdeen, Alcester, Harrisburg, and Spencer.

When outbreaks of monarchs occur like this, monarchs literally
fill the trees that line the streets of small farm towns like Gaylord, MN
(where the mosquito fogging related butterfly kill occurred) at the end
of Aug and first week of Sept. Possibly the reason some monarchs
got killed is that the mosquito spray trucks driving through the city streets
at night unknowingly blew the permethrin fogging material at close range
into some monarch clusters that were formed in trees along the streets.
A loss of a few thousand monarchs from the spray incident is trivial
in relation to the many millions of monarchs in Minnesota this year.

Ironically, the outbreak of monarch butterflies that is occuring in
the upper midwest this year also coincides with the area of the USA
where a high percentage of genetically modified corn and soybeans
are grown.

For example, Gaylord, MN is located in Sibley County, MN.

Sibley County is 589 square miles in size = 376,960 acres.

Of that 376,960 acres, 132,800 acres (35.2%) is planted in corn and
132,000 acres (35.0%) is planted in soybeans.  About 30% of this corn
crop is Bt corn and about 55% of this soybean crop is genetically
modified (herbicide tolerant) soybeans.

As everyone knows, the environmental groups have the world
believeing monarch butterflies are gravely endangered by Bt corn
and Roundup Ready soybeans. How ironic that a major outbreak
of monarchs is occuring this year in an area of the country where the
greatest concentration of genetically modified corn and soybeans
is grown.

Paul Cherubini