Benjamin Dubansky, Brooke Dubansky, Brandon Ballengée, and Christopher Just, in collaboration with Le Bleu Perdu Project, "Fresh Sea," from the series Né dans le peche (Born in Sin), 2024. Digitized image from a histology slide of American alligator osteoderm, stained with a modified version of Ramón y Cajal’s picroindigo-carmine and Kernechtrot Nuclear Fast Red. Courtesy of the artists, Le Bleu Perdu Project, Atelier de la Nature.

Avocado v. Monarch

December 2, 2016

 

11/26/16 – On lands adjoining Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, where the long-distance fliers nest as they await their next migration northward, a push to plant income-generating avocado orchards in place of native oak and fir trees is endangering the butterflies’ survival. Indeed, as a wildlife researcher has explained in Issues, habitat loss threatens a number of animal species that regularly migrate long distances as part of their natural cycles.