help with oe infestation

[beachbutterfly]

I have been raising monarchs for several years and last year we had a massive die out from OE parasitic infestation. Monarchs were coming out of the chrysalis deformed and after researching it on these forums we discovered the culprit and a means to test for it on otherwise healthy butterlies. We destroyed almost 100 butterflies that had a massive amount of parasites. I had seven hatch today, 5 males and 2 females and found one butterfly with a small amount of parasites. Should I destroy it in order to keep the parasite out of the wild population. I currently have it isolated. What should I do?

[Mona Miller]

http://www.monarchparasites.org/
Go to this website on Monarch Health and click on Testing. I think this will answer your questions.

[loretta]

I have been to the Monarch Parasites website and checked out the link for Project Monarch Health where you can get a kit to swab butterflies and then send the results in. I also clicked on the link for Testing, and it suggests to destroy infected butterflies lest one infects the milkweed patch. I understand the need for research however, I would be kind of glum to have swabbed a bunch of butterflies, released them, only to get the results back giving bad news. Has any one sent for this kit and participated in the study? I don't have a microscope, yet. Last year I had a few cats die, but I suspect it was because the field had been sprayed. All the adults that emerged looked hale and hearty. These were all eggs and cats from the wild, reared in airy, clean cages.

[Mona Miller]

You can test your own butterflies. All you need is a small 40x microscope. These can be purchased pretty cheaply, for example, this one from Educational Science would work:
http://educationalscience.com/merchant. ... wordstatus

http://www.monarchparasites.org/
Clicking on "Testing" for directions.

[Paul Cherubini]

I also clicked on the link for Testing, and it suggests to destroy infected butterflies lest one infects the milkweed patch. I understand the need for research however, I would be kind of glum to have swabbed a bunch of butterflies, released them, only to get the results back giving bad news.

Not everyone agrees with the suggestion to destroy infected adult butterflies.
I feel good about releasing infected butterflies because I think it's obvious they help the wild populations grow bigger. How? Well if an infected female lays 400 eggs and 10 of them survive predators, storms, etc, and become adults, some of those 10 adults will not be infected, some will be moderately infected and some heavily infected. The non-infected and moderately infected butterflies will go on to live a normal lifespan, hence enable the overall wild populations continue to grow even larger. And although heavily infected adults don't live as long in a laboratory environment, I have found they still live a very long time (up to 8 months) in the wild. Here are photos of two females born in late summer 2005 that overwintered along the California coast and then between Feb. 2006 and May 2006 I kept them in an outdoor tent to simulate natural conditions:
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/4af/2c.jpg
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k75/4af/2r.jpg
As you can see, these highly infected females were still capable of strong flight and egg laying when they were 8 months old. So it seems obvious to me that even the heavily infected females help the wild populations to grow since the infection doesn't weaken the females enough to prevent them from migrating and overwintering pretty well or prevent them from laying alot of eggs.

[loretta]

Hi Paul,
Thanks for the post. I am reading all I can about OE. I appreciate the links with your research. I sent for the sampling test kit from Monarch Health as I want to start incorporating this into my work.

[Mona Miller]

http://www.monarchparasites.org/
Make sure you click on "Research" and read what Dr. Altizer and her team have to say about OE.

How can Paul be sure that the Monarchs he retrieved were actually those he released? Does he know how many other Monarchs were affected by his release of heavily infected Monarchs? Every nectar and host source they visited they left spores behind to infect others. Releasing infected Monarchs into the environment is as bad as someone with a bad cold showing up at a crowded party.