Monarchs Abundant In Central & Southern Minnesota

[Paul Cherubini]

I recently returned from a 4 day driving tour of the herbicide tolerant GMO corn and soybean farmlands of southern, central and even northwestern Minnesota. I found monarchs and caterpillars were abundant in these GMO farmlands which is a good sign that in late August and Sept. there will be many reports of evening roosts containing 100's or sometimes 1000's of monarchs in the GMO
farmland towns of Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota and Illinois.

Here are the reports I've submitted to Journey North that have both still photos (for those of you with slow computers and internet connections) and embedded videos documenting the monarch
abundance: (if you wish to see a larger screen view of each video click on this expand icon you will see in each video: http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/icon.jpg
although you may have to wait a few minutes for the video to load and play smoothly):

1) Gravel farm road 145th Street near Hutchinson, Minnesota (south-central Minnesota) where where on Aug. 2 I observed four male and two female monarchs in about 25 minutes patrolling and laying eggs on the milkweeds that were growing next to herbicide tolerant corn and soybean fields plus two caterpillars of different ages:

http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1312920555
http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1312766867
http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1312947297
http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1312763481

2) Gravel farm road 610th Ave. near Cedar Mills, Minnesota (south-central Minnesota) where on Aug 3 I observed six male and two female monarchs in about 20 minutes patrolling and laying eggs on milkweeds that were growing next to a herbicide tolerant corn field:
http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1312932565

3) Gravel farm road Kandi-Meeker Rd. about 3 miles west of Cosmos, Minnesota (south-central Minnesota) where on Aug. 3 I observed two male monarchs patrolling milkweeds that were growing next to a herbicide tolerant soybean field:
http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1312921665

4) Gravel farm road 440th Ave near Morris, Minnesota (west-central Minnesota) where on Aug 3 a female monarch was observed laying eggs on milkweeds growing next to a herbicide tolerant soybean field: http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1312749859

5) Gravel farm road 310th Street just east of Highway 59 and about five miles north of the town of Elbow Lake, Minnesota (west-central Minnesota) where on August 3, 2011 I observed three male and one female monarch in about 20 minutes patrolling the milkweeds and laying eggs plus two caterpillars of different ages:

http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1312870206
http://www.learner.org/cgi-bin/jnorth/j ... 1312825564