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It’s Not That Anyone Wants to Kill Butterflies

By Cathryn Swan

In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.

—Aristotle

The difference between a flower and a weed is a judgment.

—Unknown

It’s not that anyone wants to kill the butterflies. Or the bees. Or the hawks. Or the owls. Or the ladybugs. They are collateral damage in the war against “weeds” or “pests,” deemed unwanted interlopers in our society’s quest for perfectly manicured, pristine surroundings.

Modern farmers are more and more abandoning time-honored methods, in order to prevent nature from “getting in the way” of their goal of efficient crop production. In fact, all organisms that inhabit the earth may become casualties in day-to-day decisions being made by farmers, landowners, parks officials, golf course CEOs, and perhaps your next door neighbor, aspiring to control nature and achieve a more sanitized world. The poisons they employ, designed to banish these “interlopers,” put all living beings at risk.

And worse, we are up against government policies heavily influenced by powerful corporations, the chemical companies and their lobbyists. They may not intend to kill, but their actions, most often motivated by financial profit, can and do cause deadly harm. They are dismissive not solely of scientific research but also of centuries-old wisdom, and of environmentalists and activists who use that knowledge in their prolonged and varied fights to save complex life on earth.

The weeds targeted for destruction often serve as food sources for birds and animals. Weeds also provide food and nectar for insects, which in turn feed birds.1

Who determines what is a “weed” or a “pest”? These terms are bandied about as if we understand the full complexity of how the larger ecosystems work. Branded with what are meant to be derogatory terms, these so-called weeds or pests have lives of their own and often contribute to this complexity in ways we cannot see. Do they need to contribute some larger benefit to humans for us to allow them to inhabit this earth? The blanket killing of organisms resulting from this mindset is now evincing repercussions well beyond the eradication of an immediate short-term target.

Rachel Carson described it in Silent Spring in 1962:

Our attitude toward plants is a singularly narrow one. If we see any immediate utility in a plant we foster it. If for any reason we find its presence undesirable or merely a matter of indifference, we may condemn it to destruction forthwith….

The earth’s vegetation is part of a web of life in which there are intimate and essential relations between plants and the earth, between plants and other plants, between plants and animals. Sometimes we have no choice but to disturb these relationships, but we should do so thoughtfully, with full awareness that what we do may have consequences remote in time and place.

For example, the endangered monarch butterfly’s life cycle “is exquisitely synchronized to the seasonal growth of milkweed, the only plant its larvae will eat.”2 Many butterflies, and their survival as larvae and caterpillars, are dependent on milkweed, which Monsanto’s Roundup is designed to kill.

“In a game of hopscotch,” Warren Cornwall at Slate Magazine writes, “successive generations of monarchs follow the springtime emergence of milkweed from Mexico as far north as Canada. The hardy plant once flourished in grasslands, roadsides, abandoned lots, and cornfields across much of the continent. It fueled a mass migration that ended each winter with more than 60 million butterflies converging on pine forests in the Sierra Madres [in Mexico]. Then came Roundup.”³

Milkweed is necessary to the very existence of monarchs and other butterflies, and their crucial pollination of flowers and plants. Roundup’s poisoning of milkweed eliminates these butterflies’ food source, and then the butterflies themselves, depriving us of the delicate beauty that butterflies bring to the world.

These colorful, beloved species are not the only victims of glyphosate—a wide variety of insects, as well as birds, fish, amphibians, and mammals are among its victims. Pesticides overall are causing grievous harm to many species as diverse as bees, dragonflies, frogs, owls, hawks, and robins. Humans are not exempt.

The environmental organization Beyond Pesticides notes that glyphosate applications directly affect a variety of non-target insects such as earthworms,4 ladybugs, lacewings, and parasitoid wasps.⁵ Glyphosate also kills fish,⁶ and the food sources for birds and small mammals.⁷

It’s a Catastrophe

“The biomass of flying insects in Germany has dropped by three quarters since 1989, threatening an ‘ecological Armageddon.’”⁸ Indeed, it is a catastrophe, and those in positions to reverse that road to Armageddon are trapped in what I call an assembly-line mentality. Speed of production is a primary consideration for success in a profit-driven society. Toxic sprays may increase the frequency of the crops’ growth cycles versus more careful, life-preserving methods. The methods may be slower and possibly more costly in the short-run, and may be dismissed as unnecessarily burdensome. It is no matter that the toxic approach ends in destroying vital members of our ecosystems: plants, flowers, bees, butterflies, insects, and other beings. Humans await their turn in this ecocidal merry-go-round. This is the price that corporate owners, backed by their government partners, are willing to pay for their immediate financial gain, and apparently they consider themselves, their families, and fellow elites to be somehow immune to the coming dire consequences.

The assembly lines of chemicals used in these corporations’ toxic arsenal provide an efficient killing machine. Any organism suspected of hindering the singular goal of increased production has to go. Slate’s Cornwall explains that the herbicides used to douse Roundup Ready corn and soy—both genetically modified to withstand the poisonous spray—also kill the milkweed.

By the turn of the twenty-first century, Monsanto had induced many farmers to plant genetically modified seeds. Production of GMO crops skyrocketed, along with their dependence on Roundup, which caused a tremendous decline in the monarch butterfly population. The amount of milkweed in farm fields fell by more than 80 percent, according to Karen Obenhauser, a conservation biologist at the University of Minnesota. Obenhauser determined that “the loss of milkweed almost exactly mirrored the decline in monarch egg production,” and that “before Roundup, patches of milkweed grew among the corn and along the edges of fields. After the herbicide—nothing but corn.”9

Milkweed belongs to the genus Asclepias, named after Asclepius, the Greek god of medicine. The genus is comprised of herbaceous perennials, dicotyledonous plants that encompass over 140 known species.¹⁰

It is important to understand milkweed’s significance in pollination. The flowers produced in the Asclepias genus are essential to it. Butterflies, as well as bees and wasps, carry the pollen from those flowers.

Pollination in this genus is accomplished in an unusual manner. The pollen is grouped into complex structures called pollinia (or “pollen sacs”), rather than being individual grains or tetrads, as is typical for most plants. The feet or mouthparts of flower-visiting insects such as bees, wasps and butterflies slip into one of the five slits in each flower formed by adjacent anthers. The bases of the pollinia then mechanically attach to the insect, so that a pair of pollen sacs can be pulled free when the pollinator flies off, assuming the insect is large enough to produce the necessary pulling force (if not, the insect may become trapped and die). Pollination is effected by the reverse procedure, in which one of the pollinia becomes trapped within the anther slit.¹¹

The female butterfly lays her eggs on the underside of the milkweed plant, which is poisonous to predators and even to horses.¹² The caterpillar emerges from the egg situated on the milkweed, then eats the egg and feeds on the milkweed leaves in its early life. This plant is essential to the life cycle of the butterfly and the species’ survival. After the caterpillar makes its dramatic metamorphosis into a butterfly, the milkweed consumed from youth remains in its body; it acts as a deterrent, and often poisons or sickens animals that eat the plant. This is another way the butterfly survives.

Since butterflies rely on milkweed to survive, and glyphosate is implicated in the wide decline of milkweed growth, glyphosate use is a key (if not defining) factor causing the current decline and potential future eradication of butterfly populations.

Humanity’s own survival depends on monarch butterflies and other pollinators. The pollinator helps the plant or flower continue its evolution, and that same plant or flower provides energy and is a food source for the pollinator. Pollinators are typically birds, bats, and insects. (The wind and sometimes the plant itself also act as pollinators.) “In the economy of nature, the pollinators provide an important service to flowering plants, while the plants pay with food for the pollinators and their offspring.”13 Yet, the food sources in our ecosystem are intricately linked to pollinators, and pollinators are most at risk from pesticides and herbicides. “Every third bite of food we eat comes to our table courtesy of a pollinator. Monarchs, bees and many other pollinators share much of the same habitat—so what happens to monarchs, happens to other pollinators. Monarchs are an indicator of the damage done to our environment—we can count them as they gather by the millions in Mexico. They are an indicator of what we cannot fully quantify—the loss of our pollinators and their habitat.”¹⁴

Though many of us are unaware of or may have forgotten this important interrelationship as we become further disassociated from the sources of our food, we are all intricately linked: the survival of our own species and our planet depends on us—all of us—remembering those interconnections, celebrating them, and acting always to protect them.

Other consequences of glyphosate and related pesticides are equally alarming. Don M. Huber, professor emeritus at Purdue University, and American Phytopathological Society (APS) coordinator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Plant Disease Recovery System, has studied pathogens for more than fifty years. In 2011, Huber wrote to then–US Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and reported that his team of plant and animal scientists had serious concerns about Roundup. They were alarmed by its ability to “significantly impact the health of plants, animals, and probably human beings.” They were also seeing reports of infertility rates in dairy heifers “of over 20%, and spontaneous abortions in cattle as high as 45%…. For example 450 of 1,000 pregnant heifers fed wheatlege experienced spontaneous abortions. Over the same period, another 1,000 heifers from the same herd that were raised on hay had no problematic births. High concentrations of the pathogen glyphosate were confirmed on the wheatlege.”¹⁵

I reached out to Professor Huber in May 2018 for an update. What kind of response had he received to his letter to the head of the usDA in 2011?

Prof. Huber noted that there was “one official response”—a group of scientists were given an opportunity to meet with usDA and EPA administrators to share results from about 130 published, peer-reviewed scientific papers documenting the concerns expressed in his letter and requesting permission for usDA and EPA scientists to follow up on their concerns. “We were treated cordially,” Huber said, “but were told to let them know when we get more information—so no action or acknowledgment resulted.”

Huber reported:

There is a wealth of information on the damage to the soil, crops, environment, animals and man, which demonstrates that the damage being done is much greater than even anticipated in 2011. I receive three to five phone calls and emails a week from other scientists (soil scientists, veterinarians, doctors, and research consultants) as well as growers/producers asking for help and direction with health problems….

Glyphosate and its formulated product, Roundup, are probably the most chronically toxic compounds ever indiscriminately released into the environment! The exponential increase in over twenty human diseases can be understood only as the physiological disruptions caused by the essential mineral chelation and antibiotic effects of glyphosate are recognized. Similar damage to animal, crop, and environmental entities can also be documented scientifically. I know of no peer-reviewed scientific toxicological studies which have documented the safety of either the GMO product or the glyphosate residues in our food, water, and environment.

There are many scientists who have sacrificed their jobs and reputation in an attempt to share the damaging effects their science has demonstrated! Scientific censorship is intense in these areas.

And what of the affected cattle? I asked Huber if anything was being done for these cows and whether the alarming damage to these animals is continuing. It appears this is slowly becoming more well known beyond the researchers, but not fast enough. Huber responded:

The problem persists and has intensified as the exposure to glyphosate (and forthcoming dicamba and 2,4-D) increases as a result of Roundup resistant weeds. More veterinarians and medical doctors are becoming aware of the problems. It is a revelation to many. When veterinarians have their clients change to non-GMO, glyphosate-free feed (and bedding straws) many of the health issues resolve in two to four weeks. The contamination of our food and water with glyphosate is so extensive that it isn’t quite as simple a restoration process for humans, but there is a dramatic difference in both behavior and general health (autism, gut issues, allergies, etc.) when [humans’ diets are] changed to organic [food sources].

Again, we see how cattle certainly are not the species being targeted by Roundup, and yet their reproduction and very life is threatened (while also suffering from the many other abusive and inhumane conditions known to occur widely under this country’s factory-farm system).

Another class of pesticide, neonicotinoids, has been shown to harm other pollinators such as honeybees. Imidacloprid, manufactured by Germany’s Bayer, is the flagship neonicotinoid, and has long been considered toxic to bees,16 as have other pesticides in this class. Imidacloprid has been found to have “a negative effect on honeybee colonies,” and neonicotinoids overall are “accused of crippling insects’ nervous systems and decimating bee colonies.”¹⁷ The Environmental Protection Agency has finally and definitively assessed the blame for the bee colony catastrophe on neonicotinoids.¹⁸ The European Union, at this writing, has been considering a ban on three specific chemicals in the neonicotinoid class, including imidacloprid. The way these pesticides work is so aggressive that we need to stop to consider what it means to “cripple” the nervous systems of countless billions of honey bees.

Anti-Pesticide Activism

I was handing out flyers one summer day at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, home to many birds and wildlife, including swans and Canada geese, as well as raccoons, fish, squirrels, and many (so-called “beneficial”) insects, as the 526-acre green space was set to again be sprayed with pesticides. I encountered a woman who had taken an early morning walk through the park after pesticides were sprayed by truck the previous evening. She told me she saw pathways strewn with multiple dying ladybugs. Ladybugs, which are properly classified as “beetles,” are not the target of this misguided spray program, mosquitoes are. Yet the ladybugs, which eat insects such as aphids, scale bugs, and mealybugs (they have huge appetites: a single ladybug can eat five thousand aphids across its lifetime19) and control pests naturally, are also being indiscriminately killed by pesticides. And ladybugs are not the only unintended victims of these pyrethroid pesticides in New York City’s spray program: dragonflies, bats, bees, fish, and more are also killed.

We hear news of the problems with neonicotinoids or Roundup around Earth Day in the spring when bees and butterflies appear. The pesticide companies and their lobbyists, who appeal to government to ease regulations around these chemicals, work hard to suppress this information and make what regulations that do exist difficult to enforce.

In 1974, Alan Watts wrote, “I—and others—have been saying for years that destruction of the environment is based on contempt for everything outside the human skin, failure to see that as a field flowers, the planet peoples, and ignorance of the fact that the oceans, the air, and even the solar system are as much our vital organs as heart and stomach. We are not in nature; we are nature. But as masters of technical weapons we are fighting the environment as if we still believed ourselves to be strangers on the earth, sent down into this world from a purely abstract, ideational, and spiritual heaven.”²⁰

Mass-scale decisions are being made by governments and large corporations that end up killing living beings in large, unthinkable numbers, simply because they are “in the way” of “progress” and efficiency. But each of us makes smaller-scale decisions on whether to accept or counter those policies and that mindset, as the system perpetrates the destruction of countless beings, plants, insects, animals, and wildlife. Can we transform our ways of thinking, being, acting, living, and interacting with these other species in our day-to-day lives? And can we do so in the short amount of time left to us? To do so requires a shift in our ways of thinking that have led to the ecological disaster we now face.