When are we going to realize that paradise is here on earth and we are living in it now? When are each and everyone of us going to do something to preserve the beauty that earth possesses? Spring is gone and now we are well into summer and we still haven’t seen the butterflies. Where are they this season?

I remember as a child one of the most important things was to catch one in a net; stare at it for awhile and then when I finally annoyed it to death, I carefully wrapped it in plastic wrap and preserved it in a book that I knew I would never read but I would always look at the amazing lines and patterns in the wings like gazing at a all natural stained glass window.

Each spring scientists are supposed to announce their annual count of Monarch Butterflies. Every winter clouds of orange and black are supposed to fill the skies in the mountain top forests of fir trees in Central Mexico. The good news is that the Monarch Butterflies came as usual this spring, but the bad news is that the numbers was down dramatically. So dramatically, that this year the numbers were at the lowest level since record keeping began 20 years ago. Hey! Why have they been keeping records for only 20 years? There has to be some scientific college degree somewhere that specializes in these beautiful free spirits of the skies. We must as a civilized species help these innocent beautiful forms of life survive. Face it. The world needs butterflies.

If the anger could stop for just a few seconds to gaze at a beautiful butterfly that dares to pass by our way, it is worth any price to see that they multiply and not dwindle. Butterflies cluster so tightly that researchers can’t actually count them but they can measure the acreage they cover. This year they covered just under 3 acres in the entire world. Most people’s property is over 3 acres. Three acres is just a spot in a map of the world. That is down 60% per cent from 7 acres last year. Why have we lost half the amount of the world’s supply of Monarch Butterflies in just one year? Where are the Hippies? The outrage? The save the earth people? That number is well below the average of 22 acres throughout the 1990’s.

Why? The exact cause for the rapid decline is uncertain. Scientists are pointing the finger at us, the humans. All the illegal logging, the ongoing drought in the Southwest and the pesticides that kill millions of milk weed, the main food source for the Monarch Butterfly. Monarch Butterfly expert, Professor Lincoln Brower of Sweet Briar College, admits that the world can exist without the butterfly but we would be diminished as a culture and as a people.

The butterflies should have reached the north now and should have been the delight of many in backyards all over America. Instead, they have become rarer. Do something to keep them alive. Research how you might even be able to create a small habitat to make more butterflies. Yes, make butterflies not war.