Dying of Monarch Butterfly Conservation | The scientific magazine



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L Incoln Brower, an American entomologist at Sweet Briar College known for his work in conserving American and Mexican populations of monarch butterflies, died at his home in Virginia last week (July 17) after a long time of life with Parkinson's disease. He was 86 years old.

"His prodigious and essential contributions to biology have been surpbaded only by his humility," said John Morrissey, professor of biology at Sweet Briar College, in a statement. "In fact, I knew him for two or three years before I realized that he was the Lincoln Brower who had written all those amazing papers that I was reading as He was just too hot, too generous, too gregarious and too thoughtful to be so famous! "

Born in 1931 in Madison, New Jersey, Brower grew fascinated by wildlife in nurseries and The rose gardens that his parents operated as a business.After graduating from Princeton University in 1954, he moved to Yale University as a graduate student. It's there that he's interested in monarch butterfly populations, particularly their breeding and migration habits.

Lincoln Brower

MEDFORD TAYLOR

Brower got his doctorate in 1957. He spent a year in a Fulbright scholarship. He then moved to Amherst College where he quickly earned the title of Stone Professor of Biology. A few years later, he moved to the University of Florida, where he remained until his resettlement at Sweet Briar College in Virginia in 1969.

Throughout his six-year career, Brower has did a lot of his work in Mexico. 50 research trips to visit the butterfly populations that spend the winter there. He has regularly spoken to not only other researchers, but also the media and the public about threats to the habitat of monarch butterflies, including deforestation in Mexico and the decline of American populations in their habitat. food crop, milkweed

. 200 scientific articles, Brower was recognized with awards for his conservation work by multiple organizations, including the Mexican government in 2008, and the Center for Biological Diversity, which presented him with the EO Wilson Award in 2016.

Chip Taylor, the founder of the citizen science program Monarch Watch, writes in a letter to Brower before his death: "Without your efforts and those of your many students and colleagues, but especially yours, it is likely that the monarch's population would be closer to the edge than it is currently.You should know that those of us in the monarch and the world of conservation really appreciate everything you have done over the decades for to press for monarchs. "

Asked on Science Friday The decline of these butterflies has become depressing, said Brower," I think that under all of this, I am an optimist. A my wonderful reasons to be on this program is to reach people because we need a riding that will defend all wildlife. . . . For me, the monarch is a treasure as a great work of art, and we really need to develop a cultural appreciation of wildlife equivalent to art and music.

Brower leaves behind his wife, two children, two grandchildren and his brother Butterfly Research Garden at Sweet Briar College will celebrate his life early in the fall.

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