TGo #4 is this item on Monarchs from your knowledge or someone’s propaganda?
I don’t think there is any major evidence that GMO’s “helped wipe out 97% of Butterflies in America’s great Monarch migration”.
There were some problems with GMO corn that produced a toxin which harmed Monarchs but this apparently was due to several factors, not just one.
Monarchs took a helluva beating in their migration places in Mexico due to heavy snows which killed them by the millions. Providing more sheltering places in Mexico and along their migration routes would help preserve the Monarchs.
I’ve also noticed a great reduction in meadows and flower fields (manmade as versus natural) that are the feeding and breeding places for butterflies and some moths, as well as bees.
I’ve been feeding butterflies for decades with the Buddleia bush (Butterfly bush) and similar butterfly-attracting flowers. Very few monarchs this year but other bushes around the neighborhood had lots of them.
However, my Bumblebees are the size of golf balls and are great pollen carriers so they are taking up some of the pollination process from Honeybees.
Also, a lot of people cut clover grass which is a main feed flower for Honey bees, and wild Alfalfa is disappearing with roadside plants cuttings and a lack of local fields growth.
If every major housing project had a small to medium flower park in it, or on its periphery, you would notice a great increase in butterflies, moths (very endangered) and Honey Bees within a few years (they need a couple years to breed enough to replace normal loses).
As for DDT, one of the greatest science hoaxes of all times. Windmills (wind power) and Solar panels are killing millions of birds and anything else that fly in their area so the greenies are actually the killers of nature’s creatures, not conservatives and the “greedy” oil/gas industry.
This Spring, plant a few good butterfly/bee attracting flowers and help preserve some of Nature’s most beautiful and amazing creatures. And as for enivronwackos, tell them to shove the harmful and very expensive biofuels up their gas tanks.
As far as I am concerned, Monarch numbers have dropped for two reasons:
First, and most significantly, the deforestation of the wintering sites in Mexico.
And second, the removal a milkweed from the landscape, which is indeed a byproduct of GMO farmers ability to aggressively spray their crops a couple of time a season. Butterfly larve can only feed on Milkweed, and for that reason females will either find one to lay their eggs on or die trying.
The correct response to the second should be encouraging people to plant more ornamental milkweed in their gardens, and this has been happening over the past few years.
“Ive been feeding butterflies for decades with the Buddleia bush (Butterfly bush) and similar butterfly-attracting flowers. “
Monarchs can sip nectar from Buddleia but their caterpillars cannot feed on it. Asclepia milkweed is the food source for their caterpillars, plant some and you’ll do them a favor.
They didn't start arriving here in Michigan until early July. It was strange, the caterpillars I had seemed to know that they were the ones destined to fly south and they were ravenous in their feeding cycle......