Scientists play crucial role in saving America’s most iconic butterfly

Monarch butterflies are known for their striking flame-orange and black appearance, and especially for their mass migration in their millions to spend winters in the mountain forests of Mexico. But despite growing problems with deforestation in Mexico, their struggle begins at home in the United States and Canada.

The butterflies that fly to Mexico are the great-great-great grandchildren of the monarchs that were in Mexico the previous winter. In 2013 the overwintering population in Mexico covered 0.67 hectares of fir forest (about 44 million butterflies) the lowest since counts began in 1994.

Once the passenger pigeon was the most abundant bird in North America, numbering in the hundreds of millions, if not billions. It would take several hours for flocks to pass a single spot, their wing beats so loud it was hard to carry on a conversation.

But by the late 1890s, they were gone from the wild and less than 20 years later, totally extinct. Could monarch butterflies see the same fate?

The annual migration of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) has high cultural value and recent surveys indicate monarch populations are declining. Protecting migratory species is complex because they cross international borders and depend on multiple regions.

Understanding how much, and where, humans place value on migratory species can facilitate market-based conservation approaches.

Monarch butterflies are in trouble. These popular insects, which have captured the public imagination with their several-thousand mile migrations, have been steadily disappearing for the past 20 years. Now, Monsanto says it wants to help turn the tide.

Can the seed and pesticide giant seen by many as responsible for the monarchs’ decline make a difference for these pollinators? Or will its next batch of genetically engineered (GE) crops make matters worse?

Monarch butterflies have experienced a breathtaking decline in the past 20 years, going from a billion strong in 1996 to roughly 30 million today because of habitat destruction. On Monday, the U.S. government announced the first federal pot of money for rescuing monarchs, with the Fish and Wildlife Service earmarking $3.2 million for the effort.

About $2 million will go toward conservation programs…

This is a wonderful 14 minute video with Chip Taylor, Carol Davit and others on monarchs’ future. We recommend this Newsy Documentary.

A line of people curves like the body of a giant caterpillar, twisting up the mountain into the endangered oyamel fir forest. Michoacán, Mexico—the cloud-misted overwintering site of the monarch butterfly.

Near the middle of the caterpillar of people, I kept pace, thinking about Catholic peregrinos who journey on well-worn footpaths and roads, sometimes hundreds of miles, to reach a precious relic…

All too often, species that humans care about only get attention when they are in crisis. Such is the case with monarch butterflies.

The insect, famed for its remarkable annual migrations, faced declines in habitat on both the Mexican and American ends of its range for decades, but now is the focus of an urgent push for a rescue.

The migratory monarch butterfly population has been decimated in recent years, with a total population decline of 90 percent over the past two decades.

But the dying butterflies are a bellweather for even bigger environmental damage.

According to several widely-cited refereed journal articles, monarch butterfly populations may have declined precipitously over the last decade due to a number of man-made and natural factors…

dramatic reduction in milkweed densities on a hundred million or more acres of row crop farmlands due to intensified glyphosate use in weed management practices…

Ferguson Missouri has stayed in the news for much of the summer and fall of 2014, and not much of what the media has been saying about this community has been pleasant, let alone laudatory.

But when I arrived in St Louis and asked my wife if we could go to Ferguson for a prayer vigil, I found a community unbelievably different from the one represented in the news.

The Obama administration is hatching a plan to establish a 1,500-mile butterfly corridor along US Interstate 35 connecting Minnesota and Texas to protect the monarch butterfly.

The majestic North American monarch is well known for both its trademark orange and black stripes as well as its epic annual migration from Canada to Mexico.

One of the hottest winters in history poses good news and bad news for migrating Monarch butterflies this season. The good news: warm weather and well-timed rains translate into a grand wildflower season with plenty of milkweed in South Texas.

The bad news: those same high temperatures in Mexico where the Monarchs overwinter mean that many butterflies have burned up much of their stored winter fats, creating a lack of fuel and extra stress for their journey north.

On March 9th 2016, just days after we’d heard the good news that monarch numbers had rebounded to cover just over 4 hectares of forest in the mountains of central Mexico; a huge winter storm hit their wintering sites and the surrounding area.

The storm began with rain and was followed by hail, snow, and sub-freezing temperatures. The freezing temperatures killed many monarchs and the strong winds caused trees to topple over, losing monarch habitat.

Los tres niveles de gobierno, instituciones académicas, de investigación y sociedad civil, se comprometieron a unir esfuerzos tendientes a proteger el fenómeno de la Mariposa Monarca y a pugnar porque aumente el número de lepidópteros que año con año llega a los santuarios de Michoacán y del Estado de México.

Al inaugurarse el Segundo Encuentro Internacional de Investigación y Conservación de la Mariposa Monarca, el Comisionado Nacional de Áreas Naturales Protegidas, Luis Fueyo…