Why You Should Worry About The Butterflies

After news broke recently that the number of migratory monarch butterflies that had arrived to winter in Mexico was the lowest since reliable records began, I went on the road on behalf of the Make Way for Monarchs initiative.

This solutions-oriented collaboration is working to place millions of additional milkweeds in toxin-free habitats this next year.

It is likely that at least 170,000,000 acres of actively-sown annual field crops in American farmscapes are now depleted of their formerly-abundant milkweeds and monarch butterflies.

Dara Satterfield hadn’t planned to conduct experiments at the Texas State Fair, but that is where her study subjects showed up last month. She was still in Georgia when they arrived, so she hurriedly packed her car, then drove all night. As she pulled into the fairgrounds in Dallas the next morning, they were feasting on nectar-filled blossoms of frostweed alongside the Wild West Pet Palooza.

The hungry travelers, like most monarch butterflies that migrate from breeding grounds in the northern United States and southern Canada, had stopped in Texas to consume enough calories to power the last leg of their flight to the oyamel fir forests of central Mexico and survive five months overwintering there.

Two years ago migrating monarch butterflies transformed the lush gardens of Cape May Point into a series of “giant orange snowglobes.” That’s how Mark Garland of the Monarch Monitoring Project describes the good monarch days, the kind of days when thousands fly overhead.

There’s been no such spectacle yet this year, but Garland and members of the project’s team, who take a census of the monarchs three times a day, are holding out hope. The popular orange-and-black insects will be drifting toward this peninsula for a few more weeks to fill up on nectar before riding the winds that will hoist them over the Delaware Bay and on toward Mexico.

Today, the Administration is releasing the Pollinator Partnership Action Plan (PPAP), building on Federal actions to improve pollinator health by facilitating additional state and private-sector engagement.

The PPAP furthers President Obama’s June, 2014, memorandum that focused the attention of Federal agencies on the plight of the pollinators—honey bee colony mortality rates that impact the viability of commercial beekeepers and agricultural pollination services; monarch butterfly declines that threaten its iconic continental-scale migration; and other pollinator species quietly slipping toward extinction.

Want to help monarch butterflies? Encourage a local school, faith group, business or institution with gardens or green space to add more milkweed and butterfly-friendly plants.

Here are the seven steps to planting the seeds for growing a butterfly garden in your community…

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.

Make Way for Monarchs Alliance is the newest partner to join the Monarch Joint Venture. Make Way for Monarchs brings together farmers, scientists, writers and artists to raise awareness about the dilemma faced by monarchs and milkweed across North America.

We are pleased to welcome the Arizona and North Carolina based grassroots organization into our partnership.

Threats to several of the world’s great animal migrations necessitate a research agenda focused on identifying drivers of their population dynamics. The monarch butterfly is an iconic species whose continental migratory population in eastern North America has been declining precipitously.

Recent analyses have linked the monarch decline to reduced abundance of milkweed host plants in the USA caused by increased use of genetically modified herbicide-resistant crops.

Plant and protect native milkweeds and nectar plants, while making sure that the plants you transplant or plant as seeds are native to your region. Use locally sourced material when possible.

Avoid the use of herbicides and pesticides on or near these plants.

  A Ninth Circuit panel ruled against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday, finding the agency must take a…

The monarch butterfly refuge in Mexico, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is winter home to tens of millions of migrating monarchs, should be declared “in danger” because the remarkable transcontinental migration it was established to protect “is at risk of disappearing,” a group of Mexican, American and Canadian civil society and conservation organizations said in a petition today.

Monarch butterflies, which pollinate many different kinds of wildflowers, are among nature’s great wonders. Their annual migration is one of the most awe-inspiring on Earth: Each fall, millions of these striking black-and-orange butterflies take flight on a 3,000-mile journey across the U.S. and Canada to wintering grounds in Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountains.

The monarch population, which is determined by measuring the number of hectares the butterflies occupy in their Mexico habitat, has declined to 2.48 hectares—almost 30 percent less than last year’s population.

My mantra has always been “the impact of the individual, the impact of the individual…” I have had great teachers in my life that made sure I realized that we indeed make a difference – but it’s up to us to choose if it’s a positive or negative one.

This all started with Gary Nabhan and his wonderful, heartwarming idea for Make Way for Monarchs to sponsor a “Day of Action and Contemplation”…

More than ever before, Americans are looking at their planting of flowers on their land in their gardens in a broader context, one that includes colors and fragrance, but extends beyond our own perception of those attractions to how pollinators themselves perceive them.

The reason for this paradigm shift is obvious to anyone who has been reading the news…