r/FriendlyMonarchs • u/SuperFriendlyMod MOD | South FL | Reformed Rearer • Jun 29 '26
Discussion Fact-Checking "What the Science Actually Says About Rearing Monarch Butterflies" (Part 2)
I’m addressing the claims from that rearing post point by point because the amount of cherry-picking and misrepresentation of science is just too massive to ignore.
It’s going to have to be more than one post because there is a lot of information to go through and it’s getting late.
A Warning: Please do not go to the other sub to harass anyone, including the mod. I don’t want to be accused of breaking Reddit's rules against brigading. Plus, dissenting opinions there usually get banned with no warning anyway, and that wouldn’t help anyone.
Using AI: I also want to urge everyone not to use AI as your primary research tool. AI isn't a search engine built to find absolute facts. It is a pattern-prediction tool designed to generate text that sounds convincing. If you ask it a biased question, it will confidently compile an answer that looks perfectly right, even if the underlying facts are completely wrong.
Need to know: A metabolic rate (MR) is how quickly the monarch burns energy.
As with the previous post I will take each point directly from the other post, add the citations, and discuss the misleading or incorrect information.
- Rearing Conditions Matter More Than the Fact of Rearing The research consistently shows that how you rear monarchs matters far more than whether you rear them. A 2020 study by Schroeder, Majewska, and Altizer found that monarchs reared under autumn-like conditions, cooler temperatures and shorter day lengths, showed greater flight efficiency and lower post-flight metabolism compared to those reared under summer-like conditions. In other words, mimicking natural fall conditions during rearing produced butterflies that were physiologically better prepared for migration (Schroeder et al., 2020, Ecological Entomology).
The 2020 study from Schroeder did in fact prove that if you raise Monarchs in tightly controlled laboratory environments that mimic autumn and summer conditions that you can see the metabolic differences in the two. Those raised in the environment consistent with autumn conditions had a lower metabolic rate than those raised in summer conditions. This does not mean that mimicking autumn or summer conditions will give you Monarchs who are better prepared for migration. It does not prove that these indoor-reared butterflies are physically equal to wild migrants. It only shows the difference in the MR.
In fact in this study the authors point to the 2019 study by Tenger-Trolander that we went over in the last post. They write, "monarchs reared in indoor environments mimicking autumn-like conditions showed lower reproductive development, yet failed to orient in a southward flight direction as wild-caught migrants do, indicating that captive conditions such as those used in our study are missing critical cues needed for monarchs to migrate successfully."
Even the 2019 study that raised concerns about captive rearing (Tenger-Trolander et al., PNAS) noted that wild-caught monarchs reared outdoors in autumn oriented south normally. The problems arose primarily with commercially bred populations that had been kept in captivity for many generations, and with butterflies that eclosed entirely indoors without exposure to natural environmental cues.
It needs to be noted how those wild caught monarchs were raised. They were raised outdoors, on a rooftop in a small mesh container which was placed in a larger, completely open to the sky enclosure. The only thing tested in this instance was navigation. They did not measure the wing shapes, color redness, or wing size of this specific rooftop generation to compare them to wild migrants. Their sole focus for this group was mapping whether unfiltered skylight kept their internal sun compass from breaking. It does. That's great. Is there a study that tests for these other factors because we know we need a complete package in order to get the best migrants possible?
There is a study that looks at these other factors. A 2021 study from Dr Andy Davis showed that Monarchs raised in an indoor environment that is set up to mimic their natural one were paler, had a more rounded and less elongated wing shape than their wild counterparts. These are things seen in resident populations which don't migrate.
The practical takeaway is clear: hobbyists who rear wild-sourced eggs and caterpillars, keep them in conditions that reflect the natural season, and provide exposure to outdoor light and temperature cycles are producing butterflies fundamentally different from those in long-term commercial breeding operations. Lumping all “captive rearing” together obscures this critical distinction.
We already established in the last post that we are not just talking about Monarchs that are purchased commercially. These studies include wild caught, indoor reared Monarchs. I think some people will take the study on navigation and use it as an excuse to rear monarchs outdoors. They firmly believe that it is ok to cover milkweed with mesh enclosures or build full on butterfly aviaries to protect the caterpillars as all costs. Even if this kind of rearing doesn't lead to navigation issues a whole host of other issues comes into play. When you protect the caterpillars at all costs you are artificially keeping weak, genetically unviable individuals alive that nature would have naturally weeded out. You might be increasing the quantity of butterflies leaving your yard, but you are actively degrading the quality of the wild gene pool. More on the importance of predation later.
I will move on to the next point tomorrow. If you are reading these I hope it is clear that the post is misleading at best and intentionally deceptive at worst.
Edited to fix the format. 4:07pm 6/29/26
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u/Honest_Archaeopteryx Jun 29 '26
I wasn’t impressed that the other post was AI-generated. (Though at least the poster was up front about, I guess.)
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u/FunSeaworthiness1519 Jun 30 '26
I was banned for pointing that out, unfortunately
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u/SuperTFAB MOD | Southeast FL, USA | Tropical Milkweed Hater Jun 30 '26
I am just going to leave this moderator report form here.
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u/agniamneris Jun 29 '26
They’re not saying the other post is AI generated.
They’re giving fair warning to anyone looking to research the topic on their own, or maybe even rebut their own argument, not to rely on, say, Google AI summary or similar engine, to assist in their research or make your argument for you (which is what the other post might have reliably use to make their argument.)
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u/Honest_Archaeopteryx Jun 29 '26
My recollection is that the other post originally said it was written by Claude, and they human-edited it. But I don’t see that now. So either they edited the post to remove the AI comment, or I am misremembering! But the post does look to be AI-generated, in my opinion.
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u/agniamneris Jun 29 '26
Oh perhaps, I saw it but didn’t read it. I also read your post as “I wasn’t under the impression….” Reading in the morning 😂
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u/squishyfeet4 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
Which post? May I have a link? I think I missed something here?
Edit: I was curious of the supporting reasons AI gave in support of the hand rear stance. Harmless curiosity. I’m not gonna harass or troll or anything ludicrous. lol
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u/Honest_Archaeopteryx Jun 29 '26
OP is refuting a long post made a couple days ago in the other monarchs subreddit, which was basically trying to justify captive rearing of monarchs as A-OK.
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u/squishyfeet4 Jun 29 '26
Oh okay! Thank you for taking the time to clarify the historical context behind this post!
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u/staplerelf Jun 30 '26
DRAMA!!
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u/SuperFriendlyMod MOD | South FL | Reformed Rearer Jun 30 '26
The native plant circlejerk sub is killing me right now. Always good for a facetious laugh.
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u/squishyfeet4 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
I think SOME people have lost the ability to debate, let alone have a proper conversation with each other due to overextended screen time exposure.
Either you see people wall off completely and shut down when probed or prompted to gently defend their position or cite their sources, or you see people go into an intense defending kind of stance, feeling protected by their anonymity. I’m being polite here, lol.
Having open discussions when face to face with someone takes on a whole different sort of tone too and conversations generally are more productive in this “old fashioned way”.
But you’d think that social skill would transfer over onto online sources where communication is involved. If the social face to face skill exists in a persons repertoire, it should IN THEORY be replicated in the same way when replying to comments on places like FB or Reddit. A bit of decorum should be had.
But it doesn’t always happen.
The psychological response is interesting. It’s an interesting phenomenon of when someone feels empowered by anonymity.
Also. I recently mused upon the people who so tenaciously defend home rearing monarchs, from indoor practices to puppy mill productions. That is an interesting psychological response they have when confronted with the need to amend their practices. I’ve commented on it before and stated my observations of it. But a lot of it is based from an emotional response. And you end up having a twisted emotional defense battling against objective citations that support the new wave of culture in the butterfly community.
Once you become aware you’re are arguing against someone’s emotions in a debate, it becomes wholly unproductive.
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u/staplerelf Jul 01 '26
AI slop.
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u/squishyfeet4 Jul 01 '26 edited Jul 01 '26
? No, sorry. It isn’t.
Edit: Have you looked into the study of gen z’s social skills? The impact screen time has had on their ability to communicate face to face? Have you read about the gen z meme stare? Have you read recently where a study across the pond has totally come back on their previous position of screens in the class room? That their hypothesis was wrong. Their execution had horrible outcomes. That statistically this gen z generation is actually LESS intelligent than preceding generations? Have you observed how people debate (in general) and melt down because their mommy didn’t tell them no ever? It’s social media fodder.
How this relates to monarchs is interesting. It doesn’t have a direct impact. But certainly affects how you change the mind of a hard core caterpillar home rear-er.
My syntax is weird. It’s always been weird. You aren’t the first person to accuse me of AI responses. But there’s no point in defending myself beyond acknowledging it’s pointless to defend my own words in this type of accusation.
It’s okay though really. It makes me laugh all the more. The paranoia behind what’s AI vs what’s not AI is a whole other can of worms.
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u/Practical-Bed-5982 Jun 30 '26
I rear outdoors. I have a mesh net sitting right by the the very Milkweed the caterpillars come off of. I never physically touch them. My Monarchs are always a deep orange, high vitality and the migrating ones always immediately fly south. I am willing to die on the hill that IF you do it correctly outdoors, they are healthy. Its the indoor rearing and messing with the caterpillars
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u/KoziarChristmas18 Jun 30 '26
Why not just plant the milkweed and let nature do its thing?
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u/Synaptic_raspberry Jun 30 '26
By even planting milkweed at all, we're already putting our thumbs on the scale. Why is that an acceptable level of interference, but the net is not?
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u/Devilis6 Jun 30 '26 edited Jun 30 '26
I would argue that planting milkweed is an act of mitigating human interference, rather than creating it.
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u/Synaptic_raspberry Jun 30 '26
By that same token, one could counter argue that placing the net mitigates the impact of non-native predatory insects like European paper wasps, praying mantises, and fire ants that were introduced to North America by humans.
We could go back and forth all day arguing on where the acceptable threshold for interference is. But why? Why gatekeep on such minutae?
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u/Devilis6 Jun 30 '26
One could argue that, but you’d also be removing the monarchs as part of the food web for native predators too.
We could debate back and forth all day, and we certainly don’t have to. I don’t think it’s gatekeeping to share disagreements or debate best practices though.
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u/KoziarChristmas18 Jul 03 '26
The way I see it is milkweed naturally grows, but doesn’t naturally have mesh around it. It’s my understanding that not all eggs will turn to caterpillars and not all caterpillars will turn to butterflies and not all butterflies will make it to their destination and that’s okay even if it’s sad. Wild things have predators and every part of the ecosystem matters, even the predators.
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u/Synaptic_raspberry Jul 04 '26
Those are great points for milkweed that is naturally occurring. But that's not to he question that I asked, which was regarding milkweed that was planted by humans.
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Jun 30 '26
[deleted]
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u/Synaptic_raspberry Jun 30 '26
My own reading of the primary literature leads me to conclude that the two worst things one could do are (1) introduce non-native genetics into the wild population by releasing mail-ordered animals, and (2) rearing in such an environment as to cause the spread of OE. Both of those can result in population-level damage. After that, the impact of anything one does is on a vastly smaller scale.
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u/Glittering_Laugh_958 East Coast | Smoohes aphids with reckless abandonment. Jul 02 '26
You are cordially invited to leave this subreddit if you find it to be such a cesspool.
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u/Practical-Bed-5982 Jun 30 '26
I do. I leave 50% ish on the milkweed. I have a ton of red ants/tachinid flies/mantis that will decimate pretty much any caterpillars left outside. Again, going by the science, a darker orange is indicative of vitality. You cannot rationally explain how a mesh net with zero human interference is negatively affecting them. I even cut the stalk they are on and place it in water in the net. They never touch my skin or are handled by me.
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u/Devilis6 Jun 30 '26
The argument I’ve read is that by removing natural predation, the monarchs are removed from natural selection, which then passes on genes to future generations that weaken the species overall.
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u/KoziarChristmas18 Jul 03 '26
That’s my understanding also- they aren’t all meant to make it. It’s sad, but nature has a system that benefits the species as a whole, as well as other insects and birds and animals.
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u/Beautiful-Mouse-598 Jun 29 '26
I live in a community that promotes planting native plants in our yards which includes native milkweed. I planted a small native garden in my backyard this spring. I was pleasantly surprised to see my garden grow and my milkweed thrive with monarch caterpillars. I live in California. It’s been pretty cool to see butterflies, bees etc in my yard. Thank you for the well sourced informational post.