When Butterflies Shouldn't Fly Free

[Omaha Steve]

Scientists find that releasing captive-bred monarch butterflies can unwittingly spread disease to healthy populations of the imperiled insect.



(Photo: George Rizer/'The Boston Globe' via Getty Images)


http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/10/13/releasing-captive-bred-monarch-butterflies-wild-more-harm-good

OCT 13, 2015 John R. Platt covers the environment, technology, philanthropy, and more for Scientific American, Conservation, Lion, and other publications.

Take a look at Twitter or any other social media platform, and you’ll see photo after photo of people excitedly and passionately releasing captive-bred monarch butterflies at weddings, class expeditions, and other public events.

The photos are pretty powerful, and the people obviously think they’re doing something important to help these imperiled insects.

According to scientists, however, these releases may be doing more harm than good.

It turns out that many captive-bred monarchs carry diseases, most notably a monarch-killing parasite called Ophryocystis elektroscirrha, which is closely related to ones that cause malaria and toxoplasmosis. The diseases spread easily at large “monarch farms,” which raise thousands of the butterflies at a time and sell them for release around the country to help their wild cousins.

FULL story at link.