Visualizing Monarch Migration Data in QGIS

It has been some time since I took GIS, but I have been relearning to make basic maps in Quantum GIS, a free, open-source version of geographic information system mapping software.

I found a website that is posting citizen-science data on Monarch butterfly sighting from this spring. I took data from April and May and edited it a little bit in OpenOffice Calc.

The data are posted using www.learner.org. The link for the past 14 days of Monarch sightings is here at: JourneyNorth. The table should look like this when you open it:

The chart can be copied and pasted into OpenOffice Calc. If you don't want the first column to show, be sure to paste using the "Paste Special" tool, which allows you to hide the first column and just paste the data you want. Also, you'll want to paste the non-html text, otherwise it will try to paste the photos. When the data were how I wanted them, I saved the spreadsheet as a CSV file. Since I knew that monarchs start their journey from their hibernation location in the Oyamel fir stands of Mexico, I took a few lat/long points from that location and added it to my spreadsheet.
The data on the website also include more information if you click on them, with descriptions from the people who uploaded their sightings.

For QGIS, I found a base map of countries and borders, which I used as the backdrop and basis for the Monarch sighting data that I wanted to show. I used the standard 1984 projection.

Brown to blue-green shows a progression in the spring migration

Most sightings are of just a few monarchs. But there are a couple darker green spots that signify a lot of butterflies at one site.

To add the Monarch data, I used the tool called "Create a shapefile from CSV file", which allows me to take pretty much any spreadsheet data and, as long as I have lat/long coordinates, I can project them in QGIS. It's very handy.

Once I could view the data in GIS, I could right click on them in the legend on the software and choose Properties. This brings me to a window where I can choose an attribute such as Date or Number to classify and change the colors of the points according to the different values for each attribute. Unfortunately I don't remember yet how to choose a scale on my own for this, and so for the Dates I have a rather unattractive Legend in my final PDF map. I'll work on this.

The Print Composer allows me to design a share-worthy map with a title, legend, or a number of other aspects if I need them. I created two maps with the data so far--one with the Dates that the monarchs were first spotted by a citizen scientist, and the other with the number of monarchs spotted by a citizen scientist on one outing. It seems that the citizen scientists uploaded their numbers according to their discretion. One citizen might have just seen one and posted it, while another was out riding a horse around for several hours and counted all of the butterflies along their route.

There are a few errors in the above maps. When I get a chance I will fix them, but for now you should get the gist of what they have to say. Monarchs are moving north. Most people just see a few monarchs at a time. The 0 data point(s) should have been taken out for the Number of Sightings map. The points located in Mexico should be black, because they just show where the monarchs started out and do not represent real citizen science data points.

One thing to note is how impressive it is that these data were obtained from citizen scientists. There is a lot of potential with such projects. A similar set of maps could be made for bird migrations. The places where the most of a species is seen should be studied to see if there is something at those sites that should be replicated at other sites to improve the species's chance at survival.

Fur: Ideas for further research

Much of what I will be writing about can also be said for the meat industry. I do not mean to stand on a higher ground since I do sometimes eat meat and I do own two clothing products that are accented with fur. I also wear leather. My bias against wearing fur for fashion will come through, but I hope that any readers that I get here will appreciate my effort to try to provide balanced information along with critical thoughts on industry information. Naturally, there are a few things to correct from my first post on this topic.

First, fur does not have to come from far away. Fur is still an important part of Canada's economy. If you live in Europe, northern countries farm fur. Second, the production of fur does not usually use a significant amount of toxic products. The only one of concern would be formaldehyde, but it is used in a small amount. Third, there is a sort of certification for "Origin Assured" products, that tells you that the fur came from a location that follows regulations on humane trapping, farming, and euthanasia (killing with the use of injection or carbon monoxide).
This blog post is still presenting very introductory information on fur. I gathered the information from a website, Fur Is Green, which is providing me with a good jumping-off point and helping me to identify potential research topics that I can look into more fully. This site tells its readers that fur is environmentally-friendly in a number of ways: (1)it is long-lasting; (2)processing it is earth-friendly;(3)it is biodegradable; (4)there is no waste from the animal*; (5)no endangered animals are killed in the fur industry✢; (6)there are more of many of the animals that are trapped for fur now than there were when settlers landed.✾The website also says that "local environmental protection controls ensure that there are no harmful result." The problem with this is that the treatment may depend on those environmental controls, which can be weakened by lobbying in an industry.
Another quote that runs along the same lines is: "Animal welfare is a top priority for the people working in the fur industry because when animals provide us with a wide range of products and services, we have a responsibility to ensure the highest standards of care and prevent unnecessary suffering." What I have to say to that is, if only our recognition of this were all that it took to prevent unnecessary suffering, then the world would be a much better place. For craft furriers and small-scale animal handlers, with sufficient resources in terms of money, space, and staffing, this recognition might be all that is needed. When people are well taken care-of, they tend to be better at treating others, including animals, with respect. However, there are some people who seem to have everything and still abuse others, so I do hope that the humane treatment laws in all of these places where fur is part of the economy have the rigor to stand up to any abuse.
As I had thought about in my previous post, it would appear that as long as the harvesting of fur is done humanely and sustainably, fur products are "better" for the environment than petroleum based polyester clothing. A quote from the website reads: "Up to one gallon of petroleum is needed to produce synthetic jackets. Production of synthetic fibers involves chemical reactions at high temperatures and using harmful substances." Going off of this, I have also read that the tiny fibers that come off our clothing when we do laundry can get into our waterways and have a negative impact. These fibers are now part of the microplastic problem−in which the oceans are filling up with tiny pieces of plastic−and fish and other organisms are ingesting them in place of food. Needless to say, the ramifications of this could be significant.
A final claim made on the Fur Is Green website that I would like to comment on is about the use of science as a matter of convenience versus inconvenience. The writers talk about the basic 'boom and bust' cycle in nature. Basically, left to their own devices, species' populations will rise and fall in a cycle due to such factors as predation, disease, and food abundance/scarcity. The fur industry is purportedly following conservation biologists' research on population dynamics and see themselves as helping to stabilize the population and end the lives of the "surplus" in a humane way. In terms of ethics, I find this to be a weak justification. Wild animals have a right to live out their lives in whatever way nature intended. Besides this, predation and disease generally serve a purpose in taking out the sick and dying. I would hazard a guess that the fur on these animals is not up to the industry's standards and that fur trappers aim to get healthier animals with better coats.
Overall, as long as they are not adversely affecting populations, then I suppose I cannot say too much against the industry, but they are not saviors for playing God. Besides this, in one Q&A panel on their website, where people are asking whether they are wearing cat or dog fur, the writers make an argument that "some animal rights groups are saying that raccoon dogs are dogs, because they are classified by biologists as in the canidae✧ family... but Nyctereutes procyonoides is really a completely distinct species that resembles a North American raccoon much more than it does a coyote, wolf or other members of the dog family." This is a sloppy argument since they say they follow what scientists say on the subject of population dynamics, which suits their industry, but not to other scientists whose classification of the raccoon dog as a member of the dog family might discourage buyers. This would be me. On my hat with the little tuft of fur, the label says "raccoon", and if it came from a raccoon dog, then in my opinion I am being misinformed.
So, I have a lot to read up on. We'll see how it goes. Thank you for your attention!*They specifically mention mink in this and so it is unclear whether this is the case for other animals. Mink oils are used in leather treatment and in cosmetics, and the rest is used in fertilizer.
✢ I have a very hard time believing this and it makes me suspicious of the rest of the claims from the Fur Is Green website. I had one friend on Facebook express excitement over the prospect of soon owning a snow leopard coat. Snow leopards are listed as Endangered.
✾ I have a hard time believing this as well. Also, what about the animals that have not recovered their pre-colonial populations?
✧ Coyotes, dogs, foxes, jackals, and wolves

Fur: environmental and ethical aspects

I have never wanted to know about fur. I see that it comes from animals that to humans have no other economic purpose. I have never thought about it past not wanting to wear it because it so obviously comes from an animal that had to die for it. However, recently one of my very good friends has worn it extensively for fashion purposes.

When I mentioned my inability to ever decouple the thought of an animal dying with the sight of a fur accessory, she said she only wears vintage. She assumes that the label is correct. She assumes that it was done humanely. I would never assume this, but I am going to try my best to find out what practices are used, what extinctions are being caused, how common live skinning is. I will probably need to keep a bucket next to me for when I get sick, but fortunately I have experience with working closely with animals and even putting feral cats to sleep, so my skin has hardened quite a bit. I know about doing a job for a paycheck.

So far, besides the obvious PETA actions against fur, I also remember seeing a 60-Minutes type investigation on the fur used on Burlington Coat Factory's coats and how it came from dogs that were skinned alive. I don't see how I could ever be assured that fur was attained through humane practices, even if I was to be interested in buying it. Fur comes from far-away places like Russia and China, so I cannot casually drop in on the farm the way I feel I could do if I were buying meat from a farmer's market here and I wanted to visit the cattle.

I have never lived without synthetic materials like polyester fleece that could keep me warm without wearing fur. Because we live in an age of skepticism, my thoughts on the ethics of fur now must also take into account the environmental footprint. Polyester is plastic, made from oil. The clothing industry is very polluting. Maybe, in my investigation, I will find out that polyester producers deliberately funded smear campaigns against fur. Maybe fur is less harmful for the environment in the way that hunting for meat is less harmful than large-scale cattle ranches. Of course, there are still the tanning and other preparations of fur that I don't know about, so it may cause quite a bit of harm to the environment.

Maybe I will become the Temple Grandin of the fur trade, creating a set of best practices and a certification for businesses to stamp on their products and let buyers know where their fur is from and how it was harvested. My stomach is in knots at the thought of this. I don't want to research this topic, but I don't want to be ignorant about it, either.

I think the trouble will be finding unbiased information. I suppose if I read articles from the PETA types and from the fur trade businesses, I will be able to develop a middle ground story. I do not see myself being persuaded to ever buy fur, but at least I will be able to give fur fans information in case they want it and without the stomach-curling photos and videos. In the end, I think I will still prefer wool if I want a natural material. I may touch on down, which is another that I know will hurt to learn about.

There are more people in this world than the earth can sustain for a long period of time. The overarching issues is the fact that there are so many people and I think that if more people wanted to wear fur it would cause extinction for a lot of species.

I also came back to this issue after reading The Dodo's article about raccoon dogs being used for fur.