Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/299302351?client_source=feed&format=rss
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Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
War correspondent pays tribute to comrade who died in Libya
Tim Hetherington is trying to explain why he's drawn to documenting wars.
?There are all sorts of generalizations made up about [war]. But in going to these extremities, what?s interesting is that you see that?even in these terrible times, in these terrible moments and in these terrible extremities?people are still human. That for me is the redeeming factor of the human experience,? Hetherington says somberly before breaking into laughter. ?No,? he adds, aware of how clich? he sounds. ?That?s too f------ b-------.?
The footage, outtakes from a British television interview with Hetherington?who was killed while covering the uprising in Libya in April 2011?kicks off ?Which Way Is the Front Line From Here," a posthumous documentary about the photojournalist?s life directed by his friend and colleague Sebastian Junger.
When Hetherington was killed, Junger tried to make sense of the tragedy by seeking out and questioning the journalists who had been with him when he died.
?I had a lot of questions,? Junger told Yahoo News. ?All I had known is that he had been killed. I didn?t even know what the wound was. My first impulse was to interview the journalists who had been with him to answer those questions. Very quickly I realized I was making a film.?
While Hetherington laughed off his answer, the film shows how invested he was in seeking out the "human experience." It quickly shifts to footage Hetherington shot while covering the Libyan uprising. Sitting inside a car on a dusty road in Misrata, Hetherington slowly pans around the vehicle to film a normal-looking scene with his colleagues?including Getty Images photographer Chris Hondros, who seems to be bobbing his head to the song on the radio: ?How Deep Is Your Love?? by the Bee Gees.
But you soon realize this is no ordinary car ride. Their driver, who calmly smokes a cigarette, sits close to his machine gun as he speeds along a deserted road littered with bombed-out cars and buildings. In a nearby car, two little kids hang out a back window and flash peace signs to the camera.
?Which way is the front line from here?? Hetherington asks at one point. He doesn?t get an answer, but just hours later, he and Hondros would be dead, killed in a mortar attack on the very front line they'd been looking for.
Nearly two years later, Junger is still struggling to understand why Hetherington died. The two barely knew each other when they were paired by Vanity Fair magazine in 2007 to embed with a platoon of soldiers in a remote area of Afghanistan. Junger was basically a celebrity, known for his best-selling book 'The Perfect Storm," about a fishing boat caught up in the wild seas. Hetherington was a veteran war photographer, known for his coverage of conflicts in West Africa. Together, they made a film about the war called "Restrepo," which was nominated for an Oscar in 2011. Along the way, the two had become as close as brothers.
But as they attended the Academy Award ceremony that year, Hetherington was antsy. Overseas, the Arab world was in flames. A revolution was overtaking Egypt, and rebel forces were rising up against Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi.
?He wanted to be there,? Junger told Yahoo News.
So just weeks after walking the Oscars red carpet, Hetherington was on the ground in Libya, back in his element and aiming to document what had been a long theme in his work: Why are young men so drawn to war? Junger?s documentary is influenced by Hetherington?s quest to understand this. But Junger?s inquiry seems to be: Why was Hetherington so drawn to war?
That exploration leads to an examination of Hetherington?s life and work?dating back to his 2003 coverage of the political upheaval in Liberia, where he was one of only a handful of foreign journalists behind rebel lines during the country?s civil war.
The film includes harrowing footage of Hetherington under fire. But it also includes footage and photographs Hetherington took when he paused to engage with his subjects. It was that desire to talk that made Hetherington unique among photojournalists, said Junger, since many combat photographers tend to keep their distance from their subjects. In the footage, Hetherington is shown laughing with children in Sri Lanka and joking around with the soldiers he was embedded with in Afghanistan. His sense of humor and joy for life is evident, even in what were often difficult circumstances.
?He was not interested in war, but he was really interested in people and what happens to people in war,? Junger said.
In the film, James Brabazon, who covered the Liberian civil war alongside Hetherington, says of his friend, ?He didn?t see a division between being a photographer or a videographer or a journalist or a humanitarian or a participant. He was just Tim. It?s very hard to find that.?
But Junger?s film also seems to question whether Hetherington took his desire to be on the front line too far. According to the documentary, Hetherington, who was 40 when he died, was conflicted about his desire to settle down with his girlfriend, Idil Ibrahim, and his quest to tell the story of war. In the documentary he even acknowledges that war photography can be a ?very destructive thing to carry on beyond a certain age.?
The film ends with footage Hetherington shot in Misrata before he and Hondros were killed, including a visit inside a building where rebel soldiers were trying to smoke out enemy snipers by sending burning tires into rooms where they were barricaded.
The area felt unsafe to some journalists who had been with Hetherington and his group earlier that day, including photographer Andre Liohn, who questions in the film whether the group had put themselves in unnecessary danger.
?In the war you lose a lot of things, one of the things that you lose can be the original connection that took you there,? Liohn says. ?I felt they were not paying the proper attention and the proper respect to everything that was happening around. They were trying to get in front of the rebels.?
Junger said he included Liohn?s comments because he still struggles with the question of whether Hetherington took too much of a risk that day.
?The decision to go out to the front line is inherently risky. It?s inherently understandable because front lines are compelling. And it?s inherently stupid. It?s all of them at the same time,? Junger said. ?Everyone makes that decision, and most of the time it goes fine. And when it doesn?t go fine everyone goes, ?What the hell were you thinking???
Junger added, ?That said, I do wonder why after the intensity of fighting that Tim was part of in the morning, why he felt compelled to go out for a second dose, a second helping? That I don?t quite get. But had I been there, I think I would have been perfectly capable of doing the same thing. So I don?t want to be too judgmental about it. But I do wonder.?
Hetherington and Hondros were standing near each other when Gadhafi forces lobbed an artillery shell at the group of rebels they were photographing. Hondros died from severe head trauma, while Hetherington died from massive blood loss from an injury near his groin.
After Hetherington?s death, Junger launched a nonprofit called Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues (RISC) to give reporters and photographers combat medical training that some say could have saved Hetherington?s life. The training is free.
Junger said he hopes the documentary will help Hetherington?s memory live on and help viewers appreciate the risks that photojournalists take in covering conflict. But it?s also an inherent lesson for journalists in how to cover war?not just visually, but also in how to stay safe while doing so.
The film premieres on HBO just two days before the second anniversary of Hetherington?s death. In the film, Junger recalls an email he received from a Vietnam veteran about Hetherington being killed, who told him that the ?reality of war? is that you?re ?guaranteed to lose your brothers.?
Junger admitted he still struggles with his friend's death.
?He was my brother,? Junger said. ?And I miss him.?
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Puerto Rico moves to protect turtles
13 April 2013
Last updated at 21:15 ET
Puerto Rico has introduced a new law protecting a swathe of the island's coast that has become a major nesting site for the world's largest turtle, the leatherback.
The Northeast Ecological Corridor comprises 14 sq km (5.4 sq miles) of the island's coast.
The law ends a 15-year battle which pitted developers against green activists and several celebrities.
Leatherback turtles are a highly endangered species.
"Today this important, highly ecologically valuable resource is being protected forever... History is being made," said Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla, according to the island's Vocero news site.
Developers had been looking to build hotels, golf courses and luxury homes in the area, arguing that this would boost the local economy and create jobs.
But the area - boasting lush vegetation and pristine beaches - is now likely to become a centre for eco-tourism.
As well as being a nesting site for the leatherback turtle, the area is home to more than 860 different types of flora and fauna.
It also contains a bioluminescent bay, featuring micro-organisms which glow in the dark.
Leatherback turtles weigh around 600kg (95st) and their shells can be up to two metres (6ft 7in) long.
The shell is flexible and covered in a black leathery skin - hence the name leatherback.
Last August thousands of leatherback eggs and hatchlings were crushed by bulldozers moving waterlogged sand from key nesting areas.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22140670#sa-ns_mchannel=rss&ns_source=PublicRSS20-sa
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Medicare increase could ding some in middle class
WASHINGTON (AP) ? Retired city worker Sheila Pugach lives in a modest home on a quiet street in Albuquerque, N.M., and drives an 18-year-old Subaru.
Pugach doesn't see herself as upper-income by any stretch, but President Barack Obama's budget would raise her Medicare premiums and those of other comfortably retired seniors, adding to a surcharge that already costs some 2 million beneficiaries hundreds of dollars a year each.
Due to the creeping effects of inflation, 20 million Medicare beneficiaries also would end up paying higher "income related" premiums for their outpatient and prescription coverage over time.
Obama administration officials say Obama's proposal will help improve the financial stability of Medicare by reducing taxpayer subsidies for retirees who can afford to pay a bigger share of costs. Congressional Republicans agree with the president on this one, making it highly likely the idea will become law if there's a budget deal this year.
But the way Pugach sees it, she's being penalized for prudence, dinged for saving diligently.
It was the government, she says, that pushed her into a higher income bracket where she'd have to pay additional Medicare premiums.
IRS rules require people age 70-and-a-half and older to make regular minimum withdrawals from tax-deferred retirement nest eggs like 401(k)s. That was enough to nudge her over Medicare's line.
"We were good soldiers when we were young," said Pugach, who worked as a computer systems analyst. "I was afraid of not having money for retirement and I put in as much as I could. The consequence is now I have to pay about $500 a year more in Medicare premiums."
Currently only about 1 in 20 Medicare beneficiaries pays the higher income-based premiums, which start at incomes over $85,000 for individuals and $170,000 for couples. As a reference point, the median or midpoint U.S. household income is about $53,000.
Obama's budget would change Medicare's upper-income premiums in several ways. First, it would raise the monthly amounts for those currently paying.
If the proposal already were law, Pugach would be paying about $168 a month for outpatient coverage under Medicare's Part B, instead of $146.90.
Then, the plan would create five new income brackets to squeeze more revenue from the top tiers of retirees.
But its biggest impact would come through inflation.
The administration is proposing to extend a freeze on the income brackets at which seniors are liable for the higher premiums until 1 in 4 retirees has to pay. It wouldn't be the top 5 percent anymore, but the top 25 percent.
"Over time, the higher premiums will affect people who by today's standards are considered middle-income," explained Tricia Neuman, vice president for Medicare policy at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. "At some point, it raises questions about whether (Medicare) premiums will continue to be affordable."
Required withdrawals from retirement accounts would be the trigger for some of these retirees. For others it could be taking a part-time job.
One consequence could be political problems for Medicare. A growing group of beneficiaries might come together around a shared a sense of grievance.
"That's part of the problem with the premiums ? they simply act like a higher tax based on income," said David Certner, federal policy director for AARP, the seniors lobby.
"Means testing" of Medicare benefits was introduced in 2007 under President George W. Bush in the form of higher outpatient premiums for the top-earning retirees. Obama's health care law expanded the policy and also added a surcharge for prescription coverage.
The latest proposal ramps up the reach of means testing and sets up a political confrontation between AARP and liberal groups on one side and fiscal conservatives on the other. The liberals long have argued that support for Medicare will be undermined if the program starts charging more for the well-to-do. Not only are higher-income people more likely to be politically active, but they also tend to be in better health.
Fiscal conservatives say it makes no sense for government to provide the same generous subsidies to people who can afford to pay at least some of the cost themselves. As a rule, taxpayers pay for 75 percent of Medicare's outpatient and prescription benefits. Even millionaires would still get a 10 percent subsidy on their premiums under Obama's plan. Technically, both programs are voluntary.
"The government has to understand the difference between universal opportunity and universal subsidy," said David Walker, the former head of the congressional Government Accountability Office. "This is a very modest step toward changing the government subsidy associated with Medicare's two voluntary programs."
It still doesn't sit well with Pugach. She says she's been postponing remodeling work on her 58-year-old house because she's concerned about the cost. Having a convenient utility room so she doesn't have to go out to the garage to do laundry would help with her back problems.
"They think all old people are living the life of Riley," she said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/medicare-increase-could-ding-middle-class-141951719--politics.html
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Sunday, April 14, 2013
Two hikers missing in Washington state after avalanche
By Karen Brooks
(Reuters) - Two hikers were missing after at least one avalanche struck the mountains in Washington state on Saturday in an area east of Seattle that is a popular location for winter sports, a King County sheriff's spokeswoman said.
Sergeant Katie Larson said that a 60-year-old man who had been hiking with two companions went missing at around noon local time after an avalanche struck near Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascade Mountains, about an hour east of Seattle.
A second hiker received a non-life-threatening shoulder injury after the incident, she told Reuters.
In an apparent separate incident nearby, another person who had been among a group of 13 people hiking at the Alpental Ski Area was also reported missing, although Larson said the nature of that incident was not immediately clear.
"At some point something happened; we're not sure if it was an avalanche or an accident," Larson said, citing the remote location and communication difficulties with the hikers, who did not speak fluent English.
One hiker from that group suffered hypothermia and was being brought out of the mountains by rescuers, who have a two-and-a-half hour hike to where the group is located, Larson said.
"Obviously right now we're trying to (get) there as quickly as we can we before the weather conditions worsen and before nightfall," she said, adding that more heavy snowfall was expected in the area.
The King County Sheriff's Office had said earlier on social media that three people were missing in two avalanches, but Larson indicated that the number of missing had since been reduced to two.
(Reporting by Karen Brooks; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Eric Walsh)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/two-hikers-missing-washington-state-avalanche-001004491.html
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Moroccan soccer hooligans rampage in Casablanca
Associated Press Sports
updated 12:28 p.m. ET April 12, 2013
RABAT, Morocco (AP) - Moroccan soccer hooligans rampaged through Casablanca, mugging pedestrians and smashing up carriages of the city's new tram system, cars and public buses. Nearly 200 people were arrested, the Interior Ministry said Friday.
Fans from Rabat's Armed Forces Club paraded through Casablanca before Thursday's match with local club Raja and attacked people and property. The ministry report did not mention injured.
Police said Friday that 193 people were charged with vandalism and the destruction included eight tram carriages, seven public buses and 13 cars. People described on national television being attacked in the streets and mugged by the fans as well.
An inquiry has been launched to discover why more security forces weren't present.
There is a fierce rivalry between Moroccan soccer clubs featuring fan groups known as "ultras," and there have been outbreaks of violence outside games in the past. Before the match, fans from Rabat posted videos online promising to "Occupy Casablanca."
Two people died during soccer fan violence in 2012.
"The violence around the stadiums has grown in the last few years, which is why the penal code was amended in 2010 to include measures targeting hooliganism during sports events," Radio Mars sports journalist Hicham Ramram said.
? 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/51519376/ns/sports/
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Saturday, April 13, 2013
Monitoring the Monarchs
Copyright ? 2013 NPR. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.
FLORA LICHTMAN, HOST:
Next up, a case of life imitating art. A few months ago, we talked to writer Barbara Kingsolver about her latest book, "Flight Behavior." The book is a fictional account of an ecological disaster in the making, and the fate of millions of monarch butterflies is at the center of the plot. Would the species survive? That's the art part.
Now comes the life imitating part. My next guest says that monarchs, in real life, are in serious trouble. The latest census from the butterflies' over-wintering spot in Mexico shows a population plunged this year. Habitat destruction, among other factors, is to blame.
So how will this story end? Joining me now to talk about it is my guest. Lincoln Brower is a professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Florida and a professor of biology at Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia. Thanks for talking to us today.
DR. LINCOLN BROWER: Well, thank you very much for having me. It's a wonderful opportunity.
LICHTMAN: You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY on NPR. I'm Flora Lichtman.
Tell us - give us a sort of status report on the butterflies this year.
BROWER: Well, we have a record that goes back for 20 years, and we've known their colonies in Mexico since 1976. And this past year, the colony size hit 2.94 acres, and that was - the highest year was 52 acres. So there's an enormous difference between the highs and the lows, and we're way below average. And the problem is, over the last decade, we've just been going down, down, down. And this year it hit such a low number that we're worried about their recovery and what it means in the future.
LICHTMAN: And the number of acres corresponds, I guess, to the number of butterflies, right?
BROWER: Well, the way we measure the butterflies and the way we were able to get at the actual numbers, when you're looking at a colony, there are so many butterflies you can't possibly count them. But there was a storm in 2010, and butterflies were dead on the ground up to three feet deep, and we were able to estimate that there are 50 million butterflies per hectare, which is about 20 million per acre.
So if we had two - three acres, that would be about 60 million butterflies left this year, and that's getting down to being a perilously low number, because in the big year, with 52 acres, that year there were more than a billion butterflies over-wintering in Mexico, more than a billion butterflies.
LICHTMAN: A billion, with a B.
BROWER: With a B.
LICHTMAN: That is - it's shocking.
BROWER: Well, there's another decline this year that was very shocking too. We had - in previous years, we had 17 sites with colonies. This year, eight of those sites had zero butterflies. So - and the rest of them had very few butterflies. There was only one colony that had a significant number. And my worry is that they're winking out, one by one, and they may not be able to recover.
LICHTMAN: So they're not making it to these over-wintering grounds. That's what...
BROWER: The numbers - well, there - would you like me to discuss why we think they're going down?
LICHTMAN: I would. We only have about a minute left now, but let's start with one of the reasons anyway.
BROWER: Well, OK. Well, one of the main reasons why the town is going down overtime is the degradation of the Oyamel Forest, this is where the forest - the beautiful forest, high up in the mountains, protects the butterflies like an umbrella and a blanket, keeps them from freezing. Even though they're in the tropics, they're in such high elevation that they're subject to weather storms, Rain, fleet snow, freezing. And in 2010, there was the big chill, and if you've been in the forest, it's like cutting holes in a blanket or chopping holes in an umbrella. Rain gets in. The butterflies get wet. And then when it freezes on early morning, they die from frost.
LICHTMAN: We're going to hear lots more about the butterflies and what's causing the decline and what we can do when we come back from the break. Talking with Lincoln Brower, professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Florida and a professor of biology at Sweet Briar College in Virginia. Stay with us. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LICHTMAN: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Flora Lichtman. We're talking this hour about the plight of the monarch butterfly whose numbers plunged this year and have been steadily declining in the last decade or so. We're speaking with Lincoln Brower, a professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Florida and a professor of biology at Sweet Briar College. And if you want to get in on the conversation, our number is 1-800-989-8255, 1-800-989-TALK. Well, Dr. Brower, let's start with some basic biology of what the butterflies are actually down in Mexico. What's their life cycle like?
BROWER: OK. Well, I need to get to the herbicide tolerant soybeans and corn crops at some point.
LICHTMAN: We will get there.
BROWER: OK, OK. Well, what is so amazing is that in the fall, or starting around the 21st of September, these million, up to, probably, two billion butterflies migrate out of their breeding range in the great lake states in the whole Eastern United States. And they migrate down through Texas, and they arrive in Mexico, almost to the day, on the 1st of November. And then they cluster in these beautiful fir trees. They sort of like the Christmas trees that we have, and it's called the Oyamel Fir Forest, And they become very, very tightly aggregated in these colonies, and they spend the entire winter there. And then when the 21st of March comes, which is exactly six months later, they leave Mexico and they fly North in Texas, breeding along the way. And when they get to Texas, they find the milkweeds, and there, they lay their eggs and establish the new spring generation.
So these butterflies are now seven or eight months old, having been born in September, spent the entire time in Mexico, hibernating there, and then moving back into the breeding range in the spring. It's a pretty amazing life. And then those offspring that are born in Texas take about three weeks to develop, and they migrate up North and getting all the way up into New England and then to Southern Ontario and establish the next generation. And then there's a couple of more generations. And then what is amazing is that the butterflies that are produced the following September are able to fly back almost exactly the same trees in Mexico that they've never seen before.
LICHTMAN: It's amazing. And the other thing that I wanted to ask you about is why the generation times are different? Some live for seven or eight months and the next generation lives for a fewer?
BROWER: Right. Well, this is a super generation that's produced in the fall, and it all relates back to the evolution of the monarch and its history going back, probably, a couple of million years. And that is the monarchs belong to a family of butterflies that are all tropical. But when milkweeds evolved in North America, now there are 108 species, this was a huge evolutionary opportunity and the monarchs migrated out of Mexico to take advantage of these milkweeds. But the monarchs are tropical butterflies, and so you have to migrate back to the tropics in order to survive.
So that's why we have this complex migration. And if they were to breed in Mexico, they would lose their migratory urge. So they have to stay quiet for several months and then fly back into Texas, get back into the breeding mode and establish the short-lived generations which then breed over the summer.
LICHTMAN: Looks like a relay, a baton being (unintelligible).
BROWER: It is. Exactly.
LICHTMAN: Well, so why is the milkweed so important to them? What do they use it for?
BROWER: Well, milkweed is the only plant that the whole family of butterflies can eat, and the monarch feeds on all these different species of milkweeds, and only a few of them are really common. And the problem is that milkweeds are being killed off by herbicides and genetically engineered soybean and corn crops on a huge scale.
LICHTMAN: Describe that more. How are they being killed of by the genetically-modified crops?
BROWER: Well, soybeans and corn have been genetically engineered to be resistant to high-powered herbicides, particularly Glyphosate which, I think, is also called Round-Up. And when a milkweed plant is sprayed with that, it kills it. When the corn and soybeans are sprayed with it, they're perfectly happy. They've been selected to be resistant to the herbicide.
So we know that 63 percent of the milkweeds in the Midwestern United States - soybean and corn belt - have been killed over the past decade. And I, who's been out there and seen these - I was looking at a soybean field, and I can only describe it like standing on the fore deck of the Queen Mary looking out over the sea of soybean, and there was not a single milkweed growing or any other plants growing in that entire field. So these herbicides are sterilizing the environment on a scale which is probably unprecedented in the history of humanity.
LICHTMAN: It seems like there are a lot of economic incentives for this type of agriculture, and it would be hard to change the direction of that train overnight. But is there something that people like our listeners could do tomorrow to help the monarchs?
BROWER: Well, Xerces Society, X-E-R-C-E-S Society and Monarch Watch and other groups are developing milkweed gardens and encouraging people to plant them extensively throughout the range of the butterflies. It's a partial mitigation. Another mitigation that could be gotten into that I think would be very significant is to work with highway departments in all the different states so they don't spray the sides of the roads or cut them at the wrong time. And we know if you cut the milkweeds at the right time, it actually promotes the growth of the caterpillars.
LICHTMAN: Well, that's a great idea. So all of our highways could be lined with milkweed.
BROWER: And the midways too. I mean, it would be - it would not only be milkweeds. And another really important aspect of this (unintelligible) say kill off, is that it kills all the nectar plants, and so that the - all insects and all the birds, the entire food web is affected by these kills. Whereas if we had wildflowers and milkweeds growing all over the roads along the United States, it would be a significant mitigation.
LICHTMAN: You can go to sciencefriday.com/milkweed to learn more about where to get seeds if you want to plant your own monarch garden. And they can still seek it out if you put it in your garden?
BROWER: Oh, absolutely. Monarchs are absolutely magicians when it comes to finding milkweeds. In fact, one time, we were making a movie with some people and the milkweeds had barely come up and everybody was very worried, couldn't find any, and I said follow that female. And she just went from plant to plant to plant and finally we found all the plants in the field. That's what's pretty impressive.
LICHTMAN: That's amazing. Let's go to the phones. Tom(ph) in Milwaukee, welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.
TOM: Hi. How are you doing today?
LICHTMAN: Pretty good. How are you?
TOM: Oh, I'm just listening to your show, and I am glad this came up, this subject came up. I grew up on the northwest side of Milwaukee in the late '50s and the early '60s, and there was a forest. It was pretty rural back in those days. There was a forest, and as children, we would go into this little forest and we'd see thousands of monarchs. It was amazing. We were in just in awe of what we saw. At about 1963 and '64, homes were built in that same spot, and they tore the trees down.
There are no longer farms there. There are no longer the monarchs there. And I - my statement is probably - along the migration highway, some of the habitat along that way is also being destroyed, too, which kind of helps with the endangerment of their species.
LICHTMAN: Thanks for calling, Tom.
TOM: OK. Thank you very much.
LICHTMAN: Did you want to say something, Dr. Brower?
BROWER: Well, he's absolutely right. I mean, the problem is the habitat destruction on a grand scale. And development is another problem, just taking what were natural fields and converting them into development. But I think the really serious problem that we have to confront, I think we have to work with the chemical companies to help us mitigate this business of killing off the entire food chain. It's just a very serious problem.
LICHTMAN: I want to mention another link. If you want to track your monarch sightings, go to sciencefriday.com/monarchmath. And if you're interested in milkweed: sciencefriday.com/milkweed. Let's go back to the phones because a lot of people want to talk about this. Ashley(ph) in Indianapolis. Welcome to Science Friday.
ASHLEY: Thank you for taking my call. My question is about how climate change, global warming could possibly be playing a role with the disappearance of the butterflies.
LICHTMAN: Did you get that, Dr. Brower? How...
BROWER: Yes. Well, there's a lot of evidence that's coming out to indicate that monarchs - butterflies that occur in the mountains are moving higher where it's cooler and moving further north. With the monarch, we don't know what's going to happen. It's possible if the milkweeds will move north, the monarch is such a mobile creature, it may be able to follow them.
I think the problem is in Mexico if - there are several studies that suggest that this beautiful oyamel forest will be driven above its capability of surviving, and so that may be a problem. But again, the monarchs are mobile, and they may be able to move if the forests move.
LICHTMAN: Is there any chance of monarchs relocating their overwintering sites somewhere north of Mexico?
BROWER: This was a question that my colleague, Dan Slayback, at NASA had, and we flew over the area for about two weeks looking for colonies in the whole area. We covered a huge area. And we did not find a single new site other than the ones that we already had known about. I was astounded. I had predicted - the were lots of forest, they should be there, and they weren't. They were always going back to the same spot.
LICHTMAN: Do we have an idea of what's so great about those little areas or what's different about them?
BROWER: Well probably they may very well be very old. And we have a hypothesis that the monarchs are, in some way, marking those spots with a chemical that persists through the season to the next fall. And when the new generation comes back, somehow they sense that odor or chemical, and that's why they're always coming back to the same places.
And one of the supports to the hypothesis is the areas which have been terribly degraded by predatory logging. The monarchs have come back to them even though they are super exposed and really vulnerable to freezing.
LICHTMAN: Hmm. And that would explain why the different generations that have never been there before can find the right spot.
BROWER: Exactly. A lot of people don't agree with this. And we have very weak evidence for support of it, but I think it will prove to be the case as time goes on.
LICHTMAN: I'm talking with Lincoln Brower, professor emeritus of zoology at University of Florida and professor of biology at Sweet Briar College. You're listening to SCIENCE FRIDAY on NPR. I'm Flora Lichtman.
So you've been studying these guys for over 50 years now? How do you not just get so depressed by this news?
BROWER: Well, I think underneath it all I am an optimist. And one of my - one of my wonderful reasons to be on this program is to reach people because we need a constituency who are going to stand up for all wildlife. And the monarch is really popular with school teachers. Journey North have something like 40,000 participants. Monarch Watch has at least that many. And it's wonderful educational tool, and it's such a beautiful thing for anybody to get to Mexico to see it. It's just overwhelming to see it. And to me, the monarch is a treasure like a great piece of art, and that we really need to develop a cultural appreciation of wildlife that's equivalent to art and music and so forth.
LICHTMAN: While you see pictures of these ever-wintering sites and it's spectacular even just through the Internet.
BROWER: They are spectacular.
LICHTMAN: Let's go to Des Moines. Kay(ph), welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.
KAY: Thank you so much for taking my call. Thank you for mentioning Journey North. I've been watching - we've been following that for two years. My kids and I haven't harvesting the eggs and then raising them inside and then releasing them. And I've often wondered and didn't have anyone to ask - are we helping? Are we hurting (unintelligible) the pollutants water and to protect and we'll share it the classrooms so more kids have a chance to watch (unintelligible) and emerge from their chrysalis. So if you're doing this or is this damaging the population?
LICHTMAN: Thanks, Kay. What do you think...
BROWER: Well, my answer to that is anything you can do to get children interested in the monarch, even if there is a slight cost, the benefit is going to way outweigh that cost and those will be the people that are going to protect the butterfly on into the future.
LICHTMAN: What are the butterflies' natural predators?
BROWER: Well, that was in - lot of my early work was done with that my wife, Linda Fink, and we fond in Mexico that there are two major predators. And it's a really interesting story because milkweeds are toxic plants and the butterflies absorb and store the toxin into their bodies. And if a blue jay eats a monarch butterfly that fed on a toxic milkweed it'll throw up.
LICHTMAN: You took that famous picture of the blue jay throwing up.
BROWER: That's Brower's barfing blue jay.
(LAUGHTER)
BROWER: Anyway, and what we found in Mexico was that there were two species of birds, and oriole and grosbeak, which had broken through the chemical defense. And it turns out that the orioles were really clever. They were pecking into the butterfly and tasting it. And if it was poisonous, they dropped it because it turns out that only about maybe 10 percent of the butterflies in Mexico are really toxic. And so they are, by taste discrimination, able to break through this chemical defense. And so that sort of gets you to another philosophical point that no defense is ever perfect. Somebody is always going to break through it.
LICHTMAN: Hmm. Yeah, I like that note. I wonder, too, I read a little bit about dragonflies. Are they predators? I read that they - OK. I'll just say it. I read that they ate the faces off of butterflies. Is that true?
BROWER: Well, the cripsota praying mantises, but I think the overall mortality by praying - by dragonflies is probably not that large and...
LICHTMAN: Go ahead.
BROWER: Well, the big dangers to the monarch is loss of habitat. And I think that all of the other mortality factors are pretty minor.
LICHTMAN: Well, thank you so much for joining us today and telling us about this, Dr. Brower.
BROWER: Thank you, Flora, for asking wonderful questions.
LICHTMAN: Have a great weekend.
BROWER: Thank you.
LICHTMAN: Lincoln Brower is a professor emeritus of zoology at the University of Florida and a professor of biology at Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia.
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Source: http://www.npr.org/2013/04/12/177029257/monitoring-the-monarchs?ft=1&f=1007
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