We have never had so many monarchs in our garden – we have lived out east towards Howick for 15 years. It only occurred to me recently that the lack of butterflies has probably been due to aerial spraying. I remember the friendship that flew as close as a few 100 metres from our house and so low you could see the pilot. Thankfully they didn’t come over our house and I can’t remember if its was windy on the days the spraying was done but we have really only had butterflies back in the last year or two.
I lived in Point England during the spraying for white spotted tussok moth, the forerunner of the painted apple moth spraying. There was a noticable decline in insect life during the spraying, but this had been anticipated. When the all-clear was given, a festival was organised at Point England reserve, and 1,000 monarch butterflies were released to repopulate the area. It didn’t take long before monarchs were seen around the garden again, but there were no wasps, or cabbage butterflies for a while.
During the time of spraying I brought a healthy Swan plant home from Point Chev. to feed my caterpillars. They all died. No wonder there was a drop in butterfly numbers. Hope they are recovering.
I think they used Foray 48B, which was banned in the UK.
Hi All
Does anyone know which Chemical insecticide is sprayed for Painted apple moth?
I am so thankful that here in the UK, at least in the South east they don’t spray from Aircraft although we have Farmers who still use far to much herbicide and pesticide sprayed from ground level, and idiots armed with Strimmers who like to go around cutting all the Wild plants on the road verges on the grounds that it looks tidy, and then these same idiots complain that there are not as many Butterflies as there used to be!
Terry
AnonymousInactive
I live in the Painted Apple Moth spray zone!
I well remember that horrible low flying aeroplane that zoomed over head at 6am nearly clipping the trees and terrifying the cats! The butterfly numbers were down after that. Definitely.
We covered our gardens with tarpaulins (although not supposed to) swan plants and all, and did the best we could but there has been less butterflies since.
BS. I think your problem would be wasps, you need to cover your plants with net after some egg laying to get any caterpillars.
Margaret and Hajo Topzand wrote to me:
We are monarch lovers and live in the West.Can very well remember the Spraying that took place against the painted applemoth.We live on the second floor of an apartment building in a retirement village.
I had 3 pots with swan plants and quite a few chrysalises at the time ,as well as caterpillars.We manually moved the pots inside for the whole day before spraying.Next day out again.
AS far as I know not one creature was damaged during that period, but what happened after the butterflies emerged we will never know.
Hope this helps with your project,but this happened some years ago ,don’t forget.
Regards Margaret and Hajo Topzand.
When I first moved to Avondale (just outside the spray zone) 3 years ago, there was very little insect or spider life, but slowly we are seeing more and more insect and spiders. I didn’t see any monarchs when I first moved here but I have raised over 250 this season and not a day goes by without me seeing a monarch flying round the area and surroudning suburbs.
AnonymousInactive
I live in Grey Lynn and in past years have reared around 70 monarchs..this year maybe 8
I just dont get eggs
and I have seen wasps in my garden back and front and in Coxes bay park
all a bit glum
