If you live near San Francisco, the Bay Area or Silicon Valley there is a Monarch Butterfly overwintering site in the Ardenwood Historical Farms, Fremont.
The season is from November to February.
Substantially more monarch butterflies have arrived in California to overwinter
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Re: Substantially more monarch butterflies have arrived in California to overwinter
#52Even with the acknowledgement of the concept "flagship species" in conservation, I still don't get the obsession of monarch butterflies. The effort put into it seems to be pretty "narrow" for lack of better words (as in, it can't help much for other species). Did I miss something about how important it is?
> it can't help much for other species
Many of the solutions for reversing monarch also have positive side effects for other species.
All life is connected. One species can alert you to the deterioration of an entire ecosystem.
Re: Substantially more monarch butterflies have arrived in California to overwinter
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not Monarch Butterflies, but my youth included a similar experience with Lightning Bugs. They completely disappeared from our yards by my teens, but before then, a major part of the non-winter experience was catching and releasing them in bare hands at dusk. We took it for granted at the time.
Yes. It’s shocking. I spend the past few decades assuming that I’d left them not that they’d left the earth. With covid I temporarily returned to the farm of my childhood and they were one of the most conspicuous collapses. They used to be so numerous that they defined their own time of day - the magical cooling after mosquitos and before bedtime. Not any more. They are gone and mosquitoes no longer appear to be afra…
> mosquitoes no longer appear to be afraid of the dark.
Might be the Asian Tiger Mosquito[0]. They are active 24/7, unlike their crepuscular North American cousins. They also go for your ankles, so you usually don't get the "mosquito whine" in your ear before you're bitten. They've even evolved to overwinter in freezing conditions.
[0] https://cisr.ucr.edu/invasive-species/asian-tiger-mosquito
Re: Substantially more monarch butterflies have arrived in California to overwinter
#54Obligatory George Carlin ref: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7W33HRc1A6c
This is not a good take. It is patently obvious that humans have a large impact on the environment, and we value aspects of the environment. Just because some form of life is likely to survive our footprints, does not mean the things we value don't need to be stewarded to be maintained.
Carlin talks as if trying to protect species is interfering, wheres the opposite is not?! Humans are interfering no matter what, and it doesn't make sense to pretend otherwise. So if we're interfering no-matter what, let us be circumspect about it.