5 ms·
Even with the acknowledgement of the concept "flagship species" in conservation, I still don't get the obsession of monarch butterflies. The effort put into it
by thrdbndndn 5y ago
Even with the acknowledgement of the concept "flagship species" in conservation, I still don't get the obsession of monarch butterflies. The effort put into it seems to be pretty "narrow" for lack of better words (as in, it can't help much for other species). Did I miss something about how important it is?
- doyouevensunbro 5y agoMonarch butterflies are beautiful and I want them to continue to exist. I can’t speak for others but for me that is reason enough.
- Igelau 5y agoYou need better reasons than that. I doubt this is the case with monarch butterflies, but there are certainly lots of plant/animal species that are aesthetically pleasing but become invasive and wholly detrimental. If I'm not mistaken, monarchs are poisonous due to their diet, so there's some potential for negative impact if they overrun a niche that some other animal was planning to eat.
- redis_mlc 5y agoMonarchs have migrated for thousands of years between remote locations, long before humans had a large impact on the environment.
- ramesh31 5y agoSometimes people just care about things that make us happy
- bpodgursky 5y agoAnything to get people to care about insect biomass, imo.
- steve_adams_86 5y agoDiscovering and resolving problems for one species will very likely reveal or resolve problems for other species. It seems hard to lose.
- esarbe 5y agoNope, it's just that for people it's easy to just focus on a few species instead of the whole web. It also allows people to think "Yeah, that one particular species had a good year, so everything is fine and we can go back to business as usual". I for one don't hold my breath.
- sethammons 5y agopeople like LCMs: Large Charismatic Mammals. Tigers and elephants are easier to get funding to help compared to some ugly fish. People find most bugs gross and so are unlikely to help out. But the monarch is beautiful and many people remember them fluttering through their lives every year.
- gerbilly 5y ago> it can't help much for other species Many of the solutions for reversing monarch also have positive side effects for other species. All life is connected. One species can alert you to the deterioration of an entire ecosystem.