You might recall me blogging about acclaimed writer Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel called Flight Behavour. It is about an Appalachian mountain family whose lives are changed by the mysterious appearance of tens of thousands of monarch butterflies on their property at a time when the tiny but beautiful insects would usually be in Mexico. Kingsolver manages to tell a tale of climate change without putting us to sleep with earnestness. I really enjoyed the novel and recommend it.
Well, it turns out that fiction is a lot like truth, in terms of scientific evidence. We have just been told that the monarch butterfly population in Mexico dropped 60% from December 2011 to December 2012. Traditionally wintering monarchs blanketed 50 acres in the forested mountain region, but in 2012 it was three acres.
What a strange summer it would be without monarchs, but that may be the reality before long. Wintering habitat is disappearing, but so is summer habitat in our neck of the woods We build and pave over areas where milkweed once flourished, which means nothing for the butterflies to thrive on. Here in Bowmanville we are on the north shore of Lake Ontario and monarchs stage at Second Marsh and WIlmot Creek. I recall our wonder duirng one evening walk at first seeing monarchs festooning tree branches along the Samuel Wilmot trail. I had no idea this happened in Canada but the migration map below shows a major flight path through our area.
It would be a God-awful world without monarch butterflies, but there are many other species we humans are destroying rather than tending. So much for being stewards of Creation.
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