Valuing monarchs good start

'In Wildness is the preservation of the world.” - Henry David Thoreau

Have you heard about the monarch butterfly die-off? Is it just one more thing to worry about or try to forget? Either way it makes me feel uncomfortable and helpless. Monarch butterflies in particular along with bees, birds and other wildlife are decreasing dramatically over the last few years and I don't know what to do to help.

I remember seeing clumps of hundreds of monarchs huddled together, each bundle the size of a bag of tangerines hanging on the elm trees by my house. It was so beautiful to see as if they were part of the foliage lifting off, fluttering up into the blue sky, then settling back to reconnect like fall leaves of orange and black among the green.

I even bought a new camera to show others the flowering of wings right in our neighborhood. None of the pictures captured my feelings of awe. Being with a bunch of butterflies inspired me to go flying off into an unknown world and search for what sustains me. While doing this I discovered the Iowa Insect Listserv, http://bio.cgrer. uiowa.edu/herbarium/ InsectMaList.htm. Its purpose is to encourage novices who are trying to learn more about the incredible world of insects and invertebrates, their identification and ecology.

The most recent conversation on the site wondered why there are so few insects over the last few years. People recalled past summers when the windshields of our cars were covered with a mishmash of busted bug bodies. Where are those clouds of bugs that should be flying around the streetlights at night? Where are the fireflies of our childhood? The lack of insect sounds is deafening.

Some monarchs still are flying up to 100 miles a day through our limited landscape looking for food. Milkweed is the monarchs' only food and it has been reduced radically because of herbicides applied to fields of genetically modified crops covering almost two-thirds of Iowa.

How can we help the monarch? Some people suggest planting native prairie plants, including milkweed, in road ditches and yards. Others point out only about 2 percent of Iowa is in road ditches and this would make little difference in monarchs' recovery.

Still others worry if we plant in ditches it would only bring the few remaining butterflies closer to traffic. Others want to focus on educating children and the public. Round and round the conversation goes like stars in the sky as we search for ways to recognize the value of wildness and sustain our wounded world.

Where is the North Star to guide us?

As I get older I realize fewer and fewer people will long for the call of frogs, the sound of insects. Today's children will not even have memories of these sounds to call on. We no longer distinguish the names of living things except in very general terms. We barely give them our attention unless they become a nuisance, a problem, something on our windshield or in our way.

Monarchs don't seem to mind what we do. They just keep on doing what they do, looking for a living in a landscape with less and less sustaining beauty. They don't have a problem; we do as hope becomes helplessness and we are left more and more alone.

' Mark S. Edwards of Boone has worked for the Iowa Conservation Commission and is retired from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, where his work included initiating the DNR trails program. Comments: markedwards60@gmail.com