The Chasing Nature podcast launches today with butterflies — my essay and an interview about the fate of the Monarch (Danaus plexippus). Ernest H. Williams and I discuss why a familiar and widespread butterfly warrants new protection under U.S. law. But I begin the episode with some joyful noise from my neighborhood and then read a short essay titled “Butterflies and Terror” (included for you here below). If you’re new to basic Monarch ecology, my December 18 essay titled The Grace and Force of a Butterfly would be worthy reading before this episode. And for more about the podcast, here’s a trailer (including my poem read aloud to you from snowy woods).

* More detail on the state of the Monarch, including a summary of its dual life in the U.S. and Mexico, is in my December 18 essay titled The Grace and Force of a Butterfly.

* My podcast guest Ernest H. Williams also sits on the board of the Monarch Butterfly Fund. Two of his research subjects (pictured below) are Gillett’s Checkerspot (© Olivia Bergeron via iNaturalist Creative Commons) and Frosted Elfin (© Bryan Pfeiffer).

* The USFWS’s 55-page proposal is packed with information; but the FAQs at the Services’s Monarch resource page are easier to understand.

* Podcast music courtesy of guitar virtuoso D. Davis here in Vermont.

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