Opponents are concerned that widespread planting of these crops will unintentionally cause the development of resistance among crop pests to Bt, a commonly used and relatively benign pesticide. In 1999 Cornell University entomologist John Losey performed an experiment in which he dusted Bt corn pollen on plants populated by Monarch butterfly caterpillars, many of which died. Other studies have not yet helped to firm up the answer to the question of whether Bt corn poses a grave danger to North America s Monarch butterfly population. From what I ve read, it looks like there may be some problems, and it isn t just for Monarchs. If this engineered corn has natural biocides in it, the impact may be fairly widespread.
Monarch butterflies don t eat corn, but they can be near it. . . .
But I was missing the water, and so I went back to school. I found a good fit for myself in a Ph.D. Fisheries program at the University of Massachusetts, also in the same area as Smith and Amherst. I worked on the American shad, which is a migratory Connecticut River fish species. I evaluated the very first fish ladder built on that river system, and studied how the fish used it. No, actually, biotelemetry for fish was 20 years old by then.