Bad Leg

[ilsa]

Once, two years ago, I midwifed a three-legged Monarch, and I decided to release it. Don't know how far it got. Yesterday, this female eclosed with her left-front leg permanently retracted, as if the two segments were fused together.

Again, I tested her for OE. Again, negative. Is it safe to release her? Won't she be at risk when she has to grab onto the undersides of leaves in bad weather?

[ilsa]

Sorry for bothering everybody. I think I found my answer here:

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1650&p=7659&hilit=leg#p7659

The photos posted by Paul Cherubini say more than 1000 words.

Ilsa

[Paul Cherubini]

I also release monarchs that test positive for OE spores.

In the wild, monarch adults that have high spore loads have only slightly reduced lifespans on average, compared to those that have few or no spores.

So monarch adults with high spore loads still help the wild populations grow larger.

In Hawaii 90% of the monarch adults flying around have high spore loads, yet the size of the Hawaiian population is stable year after year.

One study showed that the percentage of migratory monarchs in the northern USA that have high spore loads is the same as the percentage found in the overwintering monarchs in Mexico. So this indicates that monarchs with high OE spore loads can make the Journey to Mexico with equal or near equal success.

To me killing a monarch because it has OE spores is almost equivalent to killing a dog or cat
because it has tapeworms or fleas.

[ilsa]

Interesting thoughts, Paul. Thanks.

To me killing a monarch because it has OE spores is almost equivalent to killing a dog or cat because it has tapeworms or fleas.

This might be a more apt analogy: an FIV+ cat. There's evidence that they can even live with non-FIV cats without endangering the other cats, but the standard practice is to kill them.

[Paul Cherubini]

There are alot of people who passionately believe monarch adults the emerge with OE spores should be killed and never released. But 5 months ago when I posted the question: "How many spores justifies killing the butterfly?" viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1739&p=8085&hilit=spore#p8085 no one wanted to answer.

[ilsa]

Yes, I see. The silence is deadening.

[Mona Miller]

Missing body parts or bad wings, but they can still function. Release.

OE infections. Don't release. That butterfly is visiting flowers and host plants. It is leaving that disease all over the place. If it is a female and mates, all its offspring will be infected. OE infected female's eggs have spores on them. When the eggs hatch, the caterpillars consume the spores and they are infected.

I am about to go take my flu shot. I don't want to get the flu and I don't want to spread the flu.

Releasing diseased butterflies spreads disease. No one likes killing butterflies, but that butterfly if you release it is making so many more sick.

http://www.monarchparasites.org/
Click on "Lastest Research"

Paul (Zapp) haven't we had enough baloney today already.

[ilsa]

Mona,

"Bad wings, release"? Really? Do you mean, if the butterfly cannot fly and can only crawl away, release it? Isn't that cruel?

I'm sorry, but I released my tiny butterfly the other day, even though she had a few OE spores. I couldn't bring myself to kill her. She looked so perfect. I guess a lot of perfect-looking butterflies don't get tested and are released, right?

Where can we find the statistics on what percentage of OE-positive adults look normal?

Ilsa

P.S. I'm not getting the flu shot. Too risky. I'm taking Vitamin D and eating right instead.

[Mona Miller]

I'm in the school system and around way too many other people to risk getting the flu.

I said, "if the butterfly can function". Not being able to upright itself, fly, or hold on is not functioning. There are butterflies who have a bit of damage on the wing, but can still fly.

OE is like AIDS. You wouldn't tell an AIDS person to go out and have sex without protection would you. Those that do have babies that have AIDS. This is exactly what happens to butterflies that have OE. They have offspring that have OE. They also pass the OE on when they visit flowers and host plants. It is a very hard thing to take a butterfly that you have raised and kill it, but it is even a harder thing to think that the butterflies that we may be releasing that have disease are infecting other butterflies.

Dr. Altizer's group has found that those butterflies with heavy infection usually do not make it very far. The OE weakens them.

http://www.monarchparasites.org/
Project Monarch Health
Click on "Latest Research". Become informed, make an informed decision.

[ilsa]

Become informed, make an informed decision.

Excellent advice. It seems to me that it is irresponsible to protect and raise Monarchs if one is not equipped and prepared to test every single adult, even if they look normal, before making the informed decision to release or not to release. I do have the equipment, but I certainly don't have the time to test every single butterfly in my "crop" of 200+ this year. I feel almost regretful now that I meddled with Nature and possibly enabled OE-carrying butterflies to develop and spread their spores. I am already starting to reconsider whether I'm going to do any more (for) next year than to spread seeds around in the wild.

[Paul Cherubini]

Where can we find the statistics on what percentage of OE-positive adults look normal?

Here's a typical February view of a California overwintering colony:
http://saber.net/~monarch/nb75.jpg

Tests show that 98% of those 90,000 monarchs have some OE spores and 25% have 1000 or more spores and are considered heavily infected. Yet they migrated successfully to the coast in Sept and survived the winter well until the photo was taken in February.

Now if in February, you take a bunch of those heavily infested butterflies out of that overwintering colony and put them into an outdoor tent you end up finding many live a normal lifespan (until late April - mid-May) as these three heavily infected, overwintered monarchs did:
http://saber.net/~monarch/1c.jpg
http://saber.net/~monarch/2c.jpg
http://saber.net/~monarch/4c.jpg

So the bottom line is that the wild monarchs that emerge from their chrysalids with heavy spore loads still live a normal or near normal lifespan (in the wild).

There is no evidence that OE causes heavy mortality in wild, free living monarch populations. No one here, for example, has seen an OE deformed monarch hatch from a chrysalis they collected in the wild because it's very rare that OE causes such serious problems in the wild.

OE can cause these serious deformities in LAB and HOME reared monarchs, mainly because the great majority of hobby breeders feed the butterflies milkweed cuttings instead of milkweed that's growing in the ground (cuttings are partly dehydrated so less healthy) and they rear indoors instead of outdoors (indoor rearing is less heathy). These artificial rearing conditions cause OE to have much more serious consequences. But its a mistake to think these serious consequences frequently occur in wild monarch chrysalids.

So because OE doesn't cause serious problems for wild monarchs it is not really harmful to release adults that have spores. It is more harmful NOT to release them because then they won't be able to reproduce and help the wild populations grow.

[Mona Miller]

Where in the world are you getting your facts? This is not reality. Why are you misleading people?

http://www.uga.edu/monarchparasites/whatisOE/index.html
"How common is OE in North American monarchs?
About 30% of the western migratory population is heavily infected with OE."

Where are you getting the data that shows that 98% have some type of infection?

I was comparing AIDS to OE earlier and it applies here, too. Many AIDS patients are carriers and they do live a normal life, but they can still infect other people. We can't asked OE butterflies to protect themselves. They will go out there and continue spreading the disease. Why in the world would you tell people to raise and release diseased butterflies?

[Paul Cherubini]

Where in the world are you getting your facts? This is not reality. Why are you misleading people? Where are you getting the data that shows that 98% have some type of infection?

The San Diego based "Monarch Program" measured the OE spore loads of overwintering monarchs both in California and Mexico in 1996-97. As you can see:
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/spore.jpg 59%-100% of the overwintering monarchs from Ventura County (just north of Los Angeles) to Marin County (just north of San Francisco) had some spores (1-1000 spores) and 23%-53% had high spore loads (more than 1000 spores).

I have also found out that the offspring of females that are OE spore positive will not necessarily all have spores too - some will be spore free (as many as 50% in one outdoor rearing test). So an OE positive female can actually contribute some OE free butterflies to the wild populations.

So in summary:

1) Releasing OE spore positive adults is not known to change the percentage of monarchs in the wild populations that will have either low or high spore loads,even at local milkweed patches.

2) Since 59-100% of the monarchs at most California monarch overwintering sites have 1-1000 spores, killing all those OE positive butterflies (if it was logistically possible to kill them) would seriously
reduce the capacity of the wild western population to grow during the spring and summer. So common sense dictates that killing OE positive captive reared monarchs would also reduce the capacity
of the wild populations to grow.

[Mona Miller]

http://saltizer.myweb.uga.edu/altizer2000.pdf
Associations between host migration and the prevalence of a protozoan parasite in adult populations of adult monarch butterflies

Be informed and make an informed decision. Read the above report. The leading scientists on OE do not agree with what Paul is writing.

Telling people to raise and release diseased butterflies is illogical and immoral.

[Paul Cherubini]

The leading scientists on OE do not agree with what Paul is writing.

What data or other information in that paper shows that what I wrote about OE is inaccurate?

[Mona Miller]

Read it, I am not going to quote the whole paper. Other people can read it, too.

Be informed, make an informed decision.

[summerluver]

Oh this is so hard! I thought raising three kids would be difficult, (and is!). But these poor butterflies...what to do? I wish I had known about OE at the beginning of the season when my first batch of 7 matured. They spread it among everyone for the next 3 weeks, and I lost about 60 before I could disinfect the cage and start anew. Sending infected ones out into the wild reminds me of how the black plague was spread across Europe and wiped out 1/3 of the population. It started in Asia, and when these people came up in a war for posession of Jerusalem at the beginning of the Crusades, they sent their dead that were infected by catapult over the wall into the city, Infected all the Europeans there, that then carried it back to Europe all across the Mediterranean as they made their way back to their ports, infecting everyone. (Of course, then it travelled along the trade routes up into England and beyond.) If OE is the monarch black plague, as painful as it is, I'd rather euthanize the infected then catapult the sick ones "into the city" where it will be spread across the entire population. Please don't give up raising them..one healthy male and female can make a whole lot of healthy Monarchs to stabilize the population. We need you!!!

[Paul Cherubini]

Read it, I am not going to quote the whole paper. Other people can read it, too.
Be informed, make an informed decision.

I've read the paper several times over the years. I'm not aware of any data or other information in the paper that shows that what I wrote about OE is inaccurate. So if you don't point out specifically what I said is mistaken, then how are the people reading this thread supposed to know what inacurrate information you are refering to?

[texas butterfly]

I guess you could have anomalies out there just as in human babies.

For example, the norm is to have 10 toes. Why some healthy babies have 9 or 11 toes, etc for examples.

In amphibian watch, this is one thing that they want documented. Does the frog have two heads? Does frog still have tail? Does frog have missing or extra limbs, etc....?

Some dogs do fine with only 3 legs.

I'm going to be taking a class next month and they will cover the various diseases and issues affecting the Monarch. It will be interesting what information they share.

I'm really interested to find out more about OE.

I would think that a bad leg could be either injury, disease or development issue.

[summerluver]

Wow! Where did you find a class on the diseases of Monarchs? It sounds so cool! I agree with your thoughts about an abnormal creatue being a result of something such as a genetic defect. Could you share what you've learned in your class? I'm just at the infant stage of knowing about butterfly diseases and parasites, but I've been exposed to both. (That fly larvae coming out of my moth cocoon last month was really disgusting!) I'd love to learn more.

[Mona Miller]

That fly larva may have been one that had been released to combat gypsy moths. In New England the flies have almost eradicated many of the big silk moths. Same goes for Monarchs. Many of the parasites have been released to combat other predators and then turn on the Monarchs.

http://books.google.com/books?id=3vqpGA ... q=&f=false
The wild silk moths of North America: a natural history of the Saturniidae
Parasitism

http://www.beneficialinsects101.com/goo ... ticle.html
"Good Bugs, Gone Bad"

[ilsa]

Read it, I am not going to quote the whole paper. Other people can read it, too.

Be informed, make an informed decision.

To make the best-informed decision, everyone here should be testing EVERY adult butterfly they rear or capture for OE. To release a single butterfly without testing, even if they look normal to the naked eye, is completely irresponsible. Remember the bottom-right photo on the following page. "The monarch in the bottom right image is indeed infected, but appears otherwise normal."

http://www.uga.edu/monarchparasites/testing/index.html

Ilsa