Nurturing Nature’s Habitats Is Easy | Letters To The Editor

There’s an amazingly simple answer to the environmental crisis described in a recent Sun Sentinel article by Seth Borenstein on America’s butterfly population having declined by 22% since 2000.

Plant the right flowers, shrubs and trees and our pollinators (butterflies, moths, bees and hummingbirds) will come back in droves — pollution notwithstanding. Just don’t spray insecticides near them.

Loss of habitat is not the problem — we are. Habitat is everywhere — rural, suburban and urban.

If landscapers for developers, businesses, private homeowners, farmers and governments plant native vegetation especially attractive to pollinators, and stop forever their blind obsession with easy-to-grow but water-and-fertilizer-needy non-native plants, the pollinators will return.

I created successful butterfly gardens in Hollywood, Shark Valley in Everglades National Park, Temple Terrace (near Tampa) and Dania Beach, where I now live, surrounded by butterflies and bees who also visit the yards of delighted neighbors.

The secret is to provide butterfly host plants, because every butterfly species has its own unique plant on which it lays its eggs. It is also essential to provide nectar plants they all feast on. An added bonus: Native plants once established do not need watering or fertilizing.

Here’s a starter list. Suggested host plants: Milkweeds for monarch butterflies, queens and soldiers; corkystem passionflowers for zebra longwings, julias and gulf fritillaries; Bahama or Privet Senna for sulphurs and whites, Plumbago for the blues and Wooly Dutchman’s Pipevine for several swallowtails.

Plant them and they will come, even if it takes 18 months, giving you plenty of time to read Roger Hammer’s book “Attracting Hummingbirds and Butterflies in Tropical Florida.”

The internet also has many helpful websites, including MiamiBlue.org and NABA.org.

Christopher Reiss, Dania Beach

A malevolent stooge

Even Trump acolytes realize America is in a crisis. The assailants are domestic extremists whose aim is to further an agenda of tyrants and oligarchs.

Trump’s contrived veneer is being ripped away to reveal an immoral, mendacious, transactional opportunist, without a shred of loyalty to anyone or anything but himself.

His lies are of biblical proportions, but none is so great as his emphatic denial of knowledge about the Project 2025 agenda that is now undermining our democratic institutions, alliances and influence around the globe.

Trump’s own words and deeds support the claim that he’s a malevolent Russian stooge, a Putin apologist and a threat to democracy. His lies that “Ukraine started the war” or that “ Zelensky is a dictator” align with Russian propaganda, undermine American credibility and destabilize less powerful nations.

What does it portend when the President of the United States refers to himself with “Long Live the King”?

Steve Talercio, Hallandale Beach

The court of last resort

The Trump administration filed an emergency motion with the U.S. Supreme Court, asking that Trump’s restrictions on birthright citizenship partially go into effect while court battles play out.

Shut him down, SCOTUS!

Paul Bacon, Hallandale Beach

Stand up, Florida

I raised my children to believe in service, compassion and making a difference.

That’s exactly what they do at USAID, working in some of the world’s most challenging places to help stabilize communities and prevent crises before they reach our shores.

That mission is under attack. I can’t stay silent.

USAID is not some faceless bureaucracy — it’s America at its best. It feeds the hungry, strengthens economies, and creates stability so that problems don’t become wars, and desperation doesn’t become extremism.

Dismantling it is reckless and shortsighted, an abandonment of our leadership role when the world needs it most.

Florida has always stepped up to help, whether after a hurricane or during a crisis. Now, we must stand up for USAID, because turning our backs on those in need isn’t who we are.

Ellen McElroy, Fort Myers

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