Daily Californian
Butterfly Lovers Fight Genetic Engineering
Of Crops
1999-08-20
The Butterfly Gardeners Association of Berkeley announced
this week they are launching a publicity campaign to end the use of transgenic
pesticides (BT corn) and Roundup-Ready crops , which they say harm monarch
butterflies.
Alan Moore, the group’s founder, said the increasing mortality
rate of monarch butterflies throughout the United States concerns him.
Moore said his group is calling attention to the potentially harmful effects
new pesticide and agricultural technology could have on the butterflies.
Transgenic crops, which are developed using recombinant DNA strategies
to splice toxin-producing genes of a bacteria with the plant’s genes,
are especially harmful to monarchs, he said.
In the past, organic farmers have used the insect-killing Bt-toxin by
spraying the bacteria on their crops, Moore added.
Evolutionary biologist David Seaborg, a member of Moore’s group and son of the famed Berkeley researcher Glenn Seaborg, said monarch butterflies are an “indicator species.”
The health and size of the butterfly population indicates the effects of human interference with the environment, Seaborg said.
The current trend of butterfly deaths exposes the hazards of pesticides and herbicides to human health and the environment, Moore said.
The use of transgenic plants, he said, can cause insects to build a resistance to the toxin, thereby limiting the ability of organic farmers to control pests.
“People are very passionate about butterflies,” biologist Moore said. “They are more likely to take action when butterflies are threatened than almost anything else.”
Recently, the European Union issued an 18-month moratorium on the use of such transgenic crops.
- Nadine Dabby
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