<html>
<body>
<img src="cid:7.1.0.9.0.20100829170408.01da52d8@xerces.org.0" width=216 height=108 alt="[]">
<br>
<h2><b>Anger flutters over 'Butterfly Town USA'<br><br>
<br>
</b></h2><h3><b>Pacific Grove residents demand the city make up for last
year's pruning that reduced the eucalyptus branches in a monarch
sanctuary. What if the butterflies don't return, they ask.</b></h3>By
Steve Chawkins, Los Angeles Times<br><br>
latimes.com/news/local/la-me-butterflies-20100829,0,5528008.story<br><br>
August 29, 2010<br><br>
Reporting from Pacific Grove, Calif.<br><br>
In Pacific Grove, you don't rile butterflies or the people who love
them.<br><br>
Monarch butterflies are as much a part of Pacific Grove as movies are of
Hollywood. The city of 15,000 calls itself "Butterfly Town
USA." A municipal ordinance imposes a fine of $1,000 for butterfly
molestation. In a rite of passage known to all Pacific Grove parents,
kindergarteners are decked out for the annual Butterfly Parade with
black-and-orange wings a tradition since 1939.<br><br>
So last fall, when a city contractor did what many see as an overly
zealous pruning job in the town's famous Monarch Grove Sanctuary,
residents were angry. And when a butterfly census found only 793
migrating monarchs – down from more than 17,800 at the same time the year
before tourists stayed away. Business for the season plummeted by more
than 25% <br><br>
At a City Council meeting last week, Mayor Carmelita Garcia apologized
for the city's mismanagement of the tree cutting, calling it "a
horrible mistake." In the audience, people who had come to hear
about emergency sanctuary repair wore toy butterfly antennae that bobbed
up and down as the mayor spoke.<br><br>
With the first monarchs due in about a month, volunteers have been
scrambling for potted trees that can serve as makeshift butterfly shelter
throughout the 2 1/2-acre sanctuary. "We're hoping and
praying," said Moe Ammar, president of the Chamber of Commerce that
serves the picturesque, sometimes fogbound town of Victorian
homes.<br><br>
"People who follow the monarchs come from all over the world,"
Ammar said. "When we get calls asking if the butterflies have
arrived, we have to be honest."<br><br>
Officials said the aim of the pruning was to get rid of old limbs that
were ready to fall. But in retrospect, they admit they could have been
more selective. "For whatever reason," said Deputy City Manager
Jim Becklenberg, "we didn't consult with the habitat
experts."<br><br>
But the city also says it had good reasons for its safety concerns. Limbs
from the area's many diseased pines fall from time to time. In 2004, a
toppling branch killed an 85-year-old woman who was strolling with her
grandchildren. The city, which had identified the tree as dangerous, paid
$1 million to settle the family's lawsuit.<br><br>
As anger over last fall's pruning job grew, the public works director was
fired. City officials declined to say why.<br><br>
A patch of woods near the windswept tip of the Monterey Peninsula, the
city-owned refuge is empty now. Starting with small scouting parties in
September, waves of monarchs fly in from their inland breeding grounds
and generally stay into February. They traditionally cluster in great
bunches, mostly on eucalyptus limbs, moving from spot to spot in the
sanctuary depending on the sun and the wind.<br><br>
But many of those limbs some as high as 50 feet off the ground were
chopped, along with branches of Monterey pines that filtered the sun and
buffered the wind. "They didn't trim the grove they <i>logged</i>
it," said one outraged local.<br><br>
"It's remarkably sad," said Bob Pacelli, a Pacific Grove
filmmaker who has documented the butterflies for about 20 years.
"You start looking at one part of the destruction and follow it
around, and just see more."<br><br>
In desperation, Pacelli came up with a plan: Find boxed trees
preferably blue gum eucalyptus around 20 feet high and place them at
strategic spots to help shelter the incoming monarchs. But the city has
been slow to respond, Pacelli said. One official, Pacelli said, wrongly
accused him of stepping on a butterfly, a violation of city code. No
charges were filed.<br><br>
Pacelli and a band of ardent volunteers recruited Monte Sanford, a
Reno-based environmental scientist.<br><br>
"It's almost unreal that the iconic butterfly town one of the most
famous places for butterflies in the world did that to their
resource," Sanford said.<br><br>
Just how much the severe lopping discouraged the monarchs is an open
question.<br><br>
For reasons still unclear climate change and development are possible
culprits the winter migration to the California coast has dropped
dramatically since 1997, according to the Xerces Society, a conservation
group that runs a Thanksgiving week census. Last year was bad statewide,
with a decline of about 55%. Pacific Grove, like a couple of other
Monterey County spots, saw a drop of about 90%.<br><br>
Stuart Weiss, a conservation ecologist and consultant for the city, said
many factors may have contributed to last year's decline. Three years of
drought in the Central Valley may have withered the milkweed that
breeding butterflies thrive on. Severe storms may also have played a
part.<br><br>
Weiss this week started mapping every tree in the grove, assessing
different locations for moisture, sun and wind. Creating a long-range
plan, he said he'll advise the city to plant another row of eucalyptus
trees and develop a more thoughtful, less reactive management
approach.<br><br>
"You have to think decades in advance about replacement of critical
trees," Weiss said. "I want to build some resiliency into the
habitat so that eventually, the loss of a few branches won't deal it a
fatal blow."<br><br>
Meanwhile, donations for two dozen potted trees are rolling in the
mayor herself wrote a check and, next week, the City Council is to
consider the plan.<br><br>
"Something's got to happen," Pacelli said. "If it doesn't,
there will be a bunch of old ladies chaining themselves to the trees out
there."<br><br>
<i>steve.chawkins@latimes.com <br><br>
</i>Copyright © 2010, <a href="http://www.latimes.com/">Los Angeles
Times</a><br>
<br><br>
<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
*************************<br>
Scott Hoffman Black<br>
<b>Executive Director<br>
</b>The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation<br>
<b>Chair<br>
</b>IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Butterfly
Specialist Group<br>
4828 SE Hawthorne <br>
Portland, OR 97215 <br>
Direct line (503) 449-3792<br>
sblack@xerces.org<br><br>
<i>The Xerces Society is an international, nonprofit organization that
protects wildlife through the conservation of invertebrates and their
habitat. <br>
</i> <br>
To join the Society, make a contribution, or read about our work, <br>
please visit
<a href="http://www.xerces.org/">www.xerces.org</a>.<br><br>
<br>
</body>
</html>