Subject: N.Y.Times report

From: "Edward J.O'Connor" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 May 1995 18:58:47 -0400

From this morning's N.Y.Times(2 May 1995):

   BUTTERFLIES IN SHORT SUPPLY IN CALIFORNIA

San Francisco, May 1 (AP) - Scientists and casual observers agree
that the storms that drenched Northern California over the winter
left butterflies in short supply this year, vastly limiting one of
spring's most beautiful spectacles.
  Arthur Shapiro, an entomologist at the University of California
at Davis,said he had never seen so few butterflies. He estimated
that the population was less than 10 percent of normal.
  Jan Southworth, a naturalist, cancelled all her butterfly programs
at the Ardenwood Historic Farm in Fremont, where monarchs usually
winter, because she found only 120 of the orange and black butterflies,
compared with 12,000 two winters ago.
  Mr. Shapirosaid the moisture bred fungal and bacterial diseases that
damaged pupae.(sic) In some cases butterflies developed in the pupae
but never hatched. In other cases, they hatched, but could not fly or
mate or lay eggs before another storm killed them.
  Heavy rains in 1983 almost extinguished the copper butterfly in some
flood-plain areas. Mr. Shapiro said it took many years for the species
to recover.

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From: Ms Fortune <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 May 1995 17:33:55 -0700

Saw a local article on the same subject. There are however quite a few P.
rutulus (W. Tiger ST) flying. Harkens back to an article in Xerces Soc's
"Wings" by Dennis Murphy, Stanford Conservation on their survival vs.
smaller species in the Great Basin (enduring the climate change (in the
pleistocene ?) by being stronger and therefore able to fly longer
distances... however, in this case, they seem to not be "diapausing", as
smaller local species seem to be doing... (but WHY,if that's so...;
having to do with trees as host plants/pupation sites vs grasses...?)

Sharyn Fernandez
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"...When you're doing real research, you never know what it'll cost you,
how much time it'll take, or what you'll find. You just know there's
unexpected territory and a chance to discover what's out there." -Cliff
Stoll, CUCKOO'S EGG, Ch 16, p. 93 c. 1989)
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