A 22-year-old Cassius Clay (soon to change his name to Muhammad Ali) made the above words famous when he told boxing fans what his ring style would be like when competing against heavyweight champ Sonny Liston.
That was 1964, and most everyone at the time had seen butterflies float and had been stung by a bee. Sixty years later, where did all the butterflies go? The monarch population has seen a massive decline. Since the mid-1990s, the decline in its population has been most dramatic, with estimates projecting that the population is only 20% of what it was just a few decades ago.
Then something unexplainable happened. Roosting monarchs saw a 100-fold increase in the 2021-2022 winter. According to experts, a mere 2,000 surviving migrating monarchs with only a percentage of which could have been female apparently managed to breed the population up to 250,000 in a single season.
Now, monarch butterflies are dangerously close to extinction again. An annual survey led by the World Wildlife Fund of monarchs wintering in central Mexico found the second-lowest number on record. The findings are troubling to ecologists who are intent on preserving the dwindling species.
Some say all this change is because of crops with chemicals that decimate milkweed plants, which are the host and food source for monarch caterpillars. Other theories have emerged that include global warming factors, but researchers are divided on what has been affecting the monarch population.
If you were like me as a kid, you found those caterpillars, put them in Mason jars with holes poked in the lids, filled the jars with branches and leaves, and anxiously watched the transformations into butterflies.
When the Goodman daughters were young, these caterpillars and butterflies were not as noticeable. I wondered why but never gave much thought to it. Hopefully, kids and adults will notice a resurgence of monarchs this summer. In hopeful preparation, you may want to dig out the Mason jars.
Now, about those bees…
Have a fantastic Friday, and thanks for reading.
Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Times Vedette digital editions
shane@dmcityview.com
641-755-2115