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Monarch butterflies...revisited
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Deadduck
Posted 9/2/2007 19:39 (#197229 - in reply to #196766)
Subject: RE: Monarch butterflies...revisited



Northeast Louisiana

Ron,
My wife has an aunt who's one of those "green" types. I remember her emailing me stuff over 10 years ago when I worked for the big M about Bt and butterflies. This was about the time Bt Cotton was commercialized. I told her that there had been a lot of studies regarding "off target" damage, and everything showed that the Bt protein used had little effect on the butterflies.  Also, I know organo-phosphates, carbamates, and pyrethroids typically used in cotton production are much more toxic to butterflies than Bt.
So this isn't a new assertion, just a regurgitation of the same old argument.  Kind of like the global warming BS. 

As to honeybees, my dad has a neighbor who is a beekeeper, and he claims to have lost some hives.  The other day, he was telling me that the beekeeper journal had articles blaming Bt.  He showed me one article where the author was claiming Bt corn was causing the problem, but that corn farmers would regret it because there wouldn't be enough bees to pollinate their corn!  And I always thought corn was self-pollinated.  Guess my agronomy professors were wrong, LOL.  Anyway, the problem I have with that argument is that we have had a LOT of Bt cotton in this area for 10 years now, also quite a bit of Bt corn, so why is this just now becoming a problem?  Also, from what I've read, bees are disappearing all over the world, even in places where there are little or no Bt crops grown.

 

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