Contact Orley 'Chip' Taylor, Monarch Watch, (785) 864-4051.Emily Forsyth, University Relations, (785) 864-8860
Monarch Watch seeks to protect threatened butterflies Online at : http://www.ur.ku.edu/News/01N/MarNews/Mar15/monarch.htmlRelated site: http://www.monarchwatch.org
LAWRENCE -- The monarch butterfly has had a tough winter. Both natural and human forces have threatened the monarch population in its winter habitat, located in central Mexico.
Orley R. "Chip" Taylor, professor of biological sciences at the University of Kansas, said millions of monarchs were killed in early March, but conflicting reports have attributed the deaths to different causes.
One report indicated a winter storm had hit the area, bringing low temperatures and freezing rain to the mountaintops where monarchs dwell from early November to late March. "It could conceivably have removed up to one-sixth of the monarchs in the overwintering colonies," Taylor said.
However, another report suggested the losses were inflicted by humans, rather than by nature. In the overwintering sites, lumber is a major source of income, and it was rumored that loggers sprayed trees with pesticides in order to harvest the lumber.
"We're having difficulty sorting out whether spraying actually occurred or whether this is normal winter mortality that was mistaken for spraying," Taylor said.
Taylor has been studying monarch butterflies since the early 1990s and has made several trips to observe them at their overwintering sites in Mexico. While he said it was doubtful pesticide spraying occurred, Taylor has been aware of that threat.
"The very idea that there are rumors about spraying and logging is very disconcerting to a lot of us," Taylor said. "We look at this as being a real fight, a real battle for preservation, so that the butterflies will have a wintering safe site."
One of the ways Taylor and others have been fighting that battle is through a program called Monarch Watch, located at KU. With the help of three full-time employees, Taylor leads a program focused on education,
conservation and research. The 1900 members of Monarch Watch include students, teachers, volunteers and researchers who are interested in the butterflies.
The group's latest project involves outreach to the communities in Mexico where monarchs spend the winter months. For the last two years, Taylor and others have collected textbooks and educational materials and given them to schools in Mexico.
By providing math and science resources, the Adopt-A-Classroom project aims to make a small contribution to the children who will one day make decisions about the land. Taylor said a many area students dropped out of school before sixth grade.
Jim Lovett, Monarch Watch staff member, said the program had been well received. In January, several members of the group delivered $80,000 worth of supplies to 30 schools. While obtaining the textbooks was easy, it was expensive and challenging to transport the materials across the border.
nother challenge Taylor faces is the viability of Adopt-A-Classroom. After two years of operation, the project is in financial trouble. Taylor said the program had lost $5,000 to $7,000 each year, and unless corporate sponsorship is obtained, the program will have difficulty continuing next year.
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