Insane. I wonder if recovery is even possible without devoted breeding efforts. A population this small could easily be wiped out by birds or a single storm.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/01/26/western-monarch-butte...
An estimate that can easily confuse 2k with 250k is not an estimate to use. Now if a range was specified taking into account the variability, like 100k-2k, that would be much better. If the study did this, the article would be at fault for not being accurate.
> yours is a very "programmer talking about ecology"
I don't think I know everything, I simply commented on a niche forum about something I was curious. The vitriol is completely unwarranted.
> It's a terrible situation for the species the outcome is largely the same - extinction within our lifetime - and you are quibbling about petty data concerns within the broader context.
So what? Should I take all data on blind faith? Should I not question the validity of data when bullshit is so rampant? Stop the strawman, I never said I disagreed with the conclusion of the study, just that the single estimate was suspicious.
Next time, if you actually know anything, aim to explain instead of attacking me. I can admit my mistakes and will be much more receptive.
It seems obvious to me that this is a PR release, written by a non-scientist. They didn't offer citations, and it took me some digging to find the sourcing for the oddly specific figure: https://xerces.org/blog/fifth-annual-western-monarch-new-yea...
"Since 1997 volunteers have conducted counts of overwintering monarchs for the Xerces Society’s annual Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count. As a way to better understand how the overwintering population changes throughout the winter, an additional count—the New Year’s Count—was started in 2016. Now in its fifth year, the New Year’s Count has given us a better understanding of: 1) how monarch numbers may decline at overwintering sites as the winter progresses; 2) how monarchs move between and within sites; 3) when they leave sites; and 4) the level of mortality that adult monarchs may be experiencing during the winter.
Between December 26, 2020, and January 10, 2021, volunteers conducted surveys for the New Year’s Count and tallied a total of 1,039 monarchs at 149 sites. These surveys followed the annual Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count, which is conducted annually for three weeks centered around the Thanksgiving holiday, and recently reported a mere 1,914 monarchs in total across 246 sites. At 77 sites, no monarchs were found during either the Thanksgiving or New Year’s Count, at 15 sites monarch numbers increased between the Thanksgiving and New Year’s counts, at 54 sites monarch numbers decreased, and at 3 sites monarch numbers stayed the same. After the dismal numbers from the Thanksgiving Count, expectations for finding monarchs were low, but the news isn’t all bad. For the sites counted during both the Thanksgiving Count and the New Year’s Count, the decline in monarchs averaged 37%, which is lower than previous years (40–49%)."
This is not aimed at you, but it's a general complain: It is no fun to do OSS development any more because nobody wants to contribute or collaborate: they want to post a problem in an issue and have the maintainers solve their problem.
Now aimed at you: I think there's a reasonable expectation of editorial competence from any content, and this probably didn't meet it, but I think we can all go the extra mile and read, learn, and understand before replying. Myself included.
Thanks for the link too, I'm reading through it atm.
I agree that you shouldn't post prematurely and should learn more about the subject before you speak on it, but there are so many topics that come up throughout the day it's impossible to research all of them. I was hoping if the number wasn't suspicious, someone who knew better could explain it. Maybe it would have been better to phrase my comment as a question instead of a statement though.
[Troper] X is up exponentially!
[Engineer] Actually, it's only up 25%.
[Troper] Whatever. You're minimizing the importance of X!
So the sophistry is to make a ridiculous claim to get attention, and then when you're called on it, back away and say the number doesn't matter -- it's still important.
In case it was ambiguous: yes, I did know the word, but no, it hasn't been used much lately, more's the pity.
To be pedantic, I don't think this is an example of sophistry. It may seem that way from your perspective, but I'd have to be in coordination with IUCN, which I'm not. I think in this case the logical fallacy would have to advanced by a single person or group. Also, perhaps since it's a relatively new word to you, you don't know it is considered insulting?
To recap: IUCN made the claim about a population of 1,914/99.9 percent drop in population, which was mistaken (I found the source of the error from misinterpreted numbers from https://xerces.org/ further down, if you noticed). I made the separate claim that their error doesn't really matter, because both are almost equally dire and there is little difference between the level of urgency/intervention required to prevent functional extinction. I still stand by it.
I've known the word "sophistry" for a long, long time, Throw. And I'll stack my erudition up against yours any time at all.
This isn't a gotcha. The 72% risk of western monarch extinction within 20 years figure sounds right, if not conservative, per the paper. They just can't directly compare an estimated population with an exact count from a sampling. Please let me know if you know otherwise, I'm just an interested person on the internet
I have vivid memories as a child of what was likely thousands of monarch butterflies every summer, probably until I was 10 or so, in and around the flowers and plants. Then then open pastures behind my parents house were bulldozed and a private housing estate was built and at the same time my parents also tarred their front drive. From then on the butterflies started to dwindle significantly. Those two events were the only great change in the immediate surroundings until twelve-or-so years later when a brutal winter killed a lot of the trees and plants.
Never again have I see as many in a single place.
If one wants to help the monarchs, and several other pollinator species, then plant swamp and common milkweed. They grow very easily and actually have pleasant blooms.
It’s almost as of the problem couldn’t be simpler to solve. Just plant these and watch how much activity they generate almost immediately. I did it and have been seeing monarch butterflies lately. Not a lot, but some.
Also, if you plant too close to the coast (5 or 10 miles; can't remember) it discourages migration, and does more harm than good.
If you are near the coast, plant pollinator gardens (native wildflowers) instead. Your local nursery can give more accurate and more specific advice.
Source? City Hall in my oceanfront town didn't get that memo. Last year they actually handed out free milkweed to residents for transplantation.
Even if there’s 100x as much milkweed next year as there is this year, it terrifies me that a forest fire or something could easily wipe out such a small population today and that’s the end of the line.
We have got to have a movement of restoring native plant life.
The non-native daffodils that everyone and their dog plants are extremely toxic to dogs and cats and also humans. Same goes for many plant species, especially those that are commonly planted. The, again non-native, yew bushes that are planted everywhere are also extremely toxic.
It isn’t an excuse but people will hide behind it (not saying you do). If we wanted to eliminate all toxic plants, we’d literally have nothing and certainly no agriculture.
I have children now. I’ve never seen them taste arbitrary, random plants.
Biology is a very existing field from the standpoint of mathematical formalism, which is lacking relative to the much older field of Physics. In this regard, I'm reminded of how the overly simple math of Mendelian inheritance motivated the bad policy of eugenics [2].
I welcome any proper Biologists to correct my remarks. I have but passing interest!
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_erosion
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Mendelian_inheritance
Similar story with a much larger animal; the American bison. The low end estimates say their used to be 30 million roaming the plains. There are half a million now, most livestock. We'll never get them back.
> Given the continued rate of bycatch and low reproductive output from a small population, it is estimated that there are fewer than 10 vaquitas alive as of February 2022
ugh, just the worst - from "barely knew it existed" to "extinct" in under 50 years
Monarch butterflies in California need eucalyptus trees for their winter roost https://milliontrees.me/2013/11/01/monarch-butterflies-in-ca...
"The number of Natural Bridges’ overwintering butterflies is still down more than 95 percent since 1997, and the Tasmanian blue gum eucalyptus canopy that has sheltered generations of butterflies is falling apart."
"Eucalyptus trees have small leaves that are thin enough for monarchs to wrap their feet around. For longer than anyone can remember, those trees have also provided the butterflies a convenient food source and a haven during the winter months, like a warm blanket or an umbrella to protect them from the wind and rain."
https://www.goodtimes.sc/eucalyptus-grove-monarch-butterflie...