See on Scoop.it – Garry Rogers Nature Conservation News (#EcoSciFi)
The EIA is an independent, international campaigning organisation committed to investigating and exposing environmental crime.
Timber poaching? Yes and it is threatening Monarch Butterflies along with many other species.
See on www.eia-international.org
See on Scoop.it – Garry Rogers Nature Conservation News (#EcoSciFi)
“Wherever there is injustice, you will find us”
(Ned Nederlander).
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Base Layer for Notebook Cover
The second edition of my “Arizona Wildlife Notebook” will be off to the printer (CreateSpace) as soon as I finish the cover. This edition has introductions and checklists for 12 groups of Arizona animal species: Amphibians, ants, bats, birds, butterflies and moths, dragonflies and damselflies, fish, grasshoppers, lizards, mammals, snakes, and turtles. Groups in bold type are new to the Notebook. The introduction to each group covers the group’s conservation issues and provides references for printed and online field guides. The checklist for each group includes scientific and common names and conservation status. I alphabetized each checklist by scientific name, and I included an index for all the common names. Continue reading
I have completed the second edition of the Arizona Wildlife Notebook! The new Notebook has four more species groups than the first edition, and it has an expanded index. The most important change is in the conservation status for each species. This time, I standardized the information so that future changes will be easier to track. Continue reading
By Garry Rogers
Two-tailed Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio multicaudata) Arizona’s butterfly.
Butterflies and moths are pollinators and they are food for other species. I know of no harm they cause to human interests. Nevertheless, many die from insecticide poisoning and others decline due to human removal of caterpillar host plants. The conservation status of these familiar animals is mostly unknown.
Butterflies and moths are not thought of as social insects, but they do interact beyond their feeding and mating behavior. I have watched two Monarch butterflies perched side by side patiently taking turns at a nectar source, and many of us have seen two or more individuals swirling around with members of their own and other species. Continue reading
Click here for an earlier post with a more detailed discussion.
Butterflies, just like honey bees and other pollinators, are declining because of habitat loss and because of pesticides. Even herbicides can be deadly. Monarch butterflies for instance, do not lay many eggs if there aren’t any milkweeds, and people routinely eradicate milkweeds along with other plants.
According to the Arizona Game and Fish Department, the conservation status of most butterflies is unknown. Our knowledge of moths is even less complete. Most moth species have not been identified, and there is almost no information on the conservation status of Arizona moths. The number given below for butterflies at risk of extinction is almost certainly lower than the actual number.
Here are a few sample photographs of butterflies and moths seen around my home in Dewey-Humboldt on the Agua Fria River in central Arizona. If there was a common designation of knowledge below “amateur,” it would describe my expertise with the Lepodoptera. Thus, I could not identify some of the photographed species with confidence. This is especially true for moths.
GarryRogers Nature Conservation 