I haven't seen any monarch butterflies this summer. Their disappearance has been noted throughout North America. The number heading north from their wintering grounds in Mexico is way down.
I haven't seen a definitive reason for this decline. It is variously blamed on climate change, destruction of milkweed (their food source) or just cyclical variations in numbers.
The absence of monarchs got me thinking about other species I no longer see in the backyard. I don't recall seeing any swallows recently in the yard, but have seen some along the dike in Centennial Park. There is probably just a better food source out there. There are enough bugs along the foreshore to keep them fed.
Haven't seen an opossum for more than a decade. Of course, most of the ones I use to see were road kill. The first possum corpse I saw looked to me like a pig with a rat's tail. It took a while before I figured out what they were.
In the past, we would on very rare occasions have one wander through our backyard, but I haven't seen one live or dead for years. I guess with their slow speed, they were done in by the increasing vehicular traffic in South Delta.
And speaking of slow, whatever happened to slugs. They used to be a constant fixture around our garden, but I haven't seen any for years. I admit we did battle with them with an arsenal of beer and salt. I guess a diet of alcohol and sodium is as bad for them as it is for us humans.
Makes we wonder why we couldn't develop a similar program for wasps. (I mean the insect variety, not the acronym.) I wouldn't mind if they all disappeared, but the literature says they are useful since they eat aphids. But I read that ladybugs also eat aphids. However, I also haven't seen a ladybug in a long time. Perhaps they have disappeared because the wasps are eating all the aphids.
So if we did away with the pesky wasps, would the ladybugs return?
Who knows what the result will be when you start messing with Mother Nature? Not me. I avoided biology completely in high school. That brings me to the latest controversy in South Delta - removing logs from the Boundary Bay shoreline.
Just when you thought there was nothing left to protest, along comes Port Metro Vancouver with a plan to remediate Boundary Bay by removing some of the logs washed up along the shoreline. Depending on whose biologist you talk to, the logs are either good for the bay's environment or a detriment to the critters living there.
Most of the opponents' real cause seems to be to prevent the expansion of Deltaport. The announcement last week of the new container inspection facility on TFN land adjacent to Deltaport is probably not something they are celebrating.
If PMV proceeds and finds slugs hiding under those logs once they start removing them, I hope they leave them where they are. I really don't want them back and I no longer have a supply of beer to battle the slimy critters.
I am unsure how they would react to a nice shiraz.
