Monarch butterfly

Female monarch butterflies lay eggs on wild milkweed plants. Milkweed is the only plant that Monarch caterpillars can eat.

Monarch Eggs on Milkweed

Threats To The Monarch Butterfly

Roundup herbicide killing milkweed

When Roundup Ready crops are planted, the spraying of Roundup kills surrounding species such as the milkweed plant, which is the food for monarch caterpillars.

The Last Monarch Butterfly: Conserving the Monarch Butterfly in a Brave New World

More on the The Last Monarch Butterfly...

From Canary In The Cornfield

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/85/

John Losey, Maureen Carter, Linday Rayor - Cornell University colleages

Claim that bt corn pollen can kill monarch caterpillars
Article: "Transgenic Pollen Harms Monarch Larvae"
- Could windblown corn pollen accumulate on plants that grow extensively in and adjacent to cornfields and, like conventional insecticides, inadvertently kill native insects that are not pests?
- Monarch caterpillars exposed to bt pollen
  - est less
  - grow slowly
  - suffer higher mortality

The research has been "spun, massaged, manipulated" by

USDA
US EPA
elements of North American academic community
agriculture indistry

"a larger more serious issue: the real danger that genetically engineered crops will accelerate the industrialization of agriculture, human overpopulation, and the impoverishmnet of biological diversity."

References To Monarch Butterfly Research

Assessing the risk to ~admin:Monarch butterfly larvae from BT corn pollen http://bio.org/foodag/background/bt0813.asp
- Agriculture Biotechnology Stewardship Working Group is researching whether the pollen from BT corn affects butterfly larvae feeding on nearby milkweed plants