From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <retroman@turbont.net>
>The GM crops referred to are varieties of corn and wheat that
>produces its own pesticide (much like other plants produce their
>own pesticides), thus repelling parasites. In laboratory tests,
>where monarch butterflies were given NOTHING else to eat but the
>GM plants, they did eat them and did become sterilized and died.
>Where the butterflies were given a choice between plants to eat,
>they avoided the GM plants. The Greens have not acknowledged this
>fact, and have demonstrated a rather unique case of selective
>literacy and memory.
So we have fact #1) if the entire corn crop was 100% of this
variety then the monarch would become extinct.
Now the question is at what level does the monarch population
crash? 50%? Then if half of the crop was of this variety we could
expect extinction. Actually the number I suspect is much lower, but
the fact is we don't really know.
Now another fact, Monarch's are a migrating species, they fly from
all over North America to a single mountain top in Mexico if I
recall correctly.
Now what do you think could happen if you planted a large enough
field of this GM corn at a strategic point along this migration
route?
Brian
Member:
Extropy Institute, www.extropy.org
Adler Planetarium www.adlerplanetarium.org
Life Extension Foundation, www.lef.org
National Rifle Association, www.nra.org, 1.800.672.3888
Mars Society, www.marssociety.org
Ameritech Data Center Chicago, IL, Local 134 I.B.E.W
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:35:30 MDT