Why You Should Worry About The Butterflies

On a Friday evening in January, a thousand people at the annual California Native Plant Society conference in San Jose settled down to a banquet and a keynote speech delivered by an environmental historian named Jared Farmer.

His chosen topic was the eucalyptus tree and its role in California’s ecology and history. The address did not go well. Eucalyptus is not a native plant but a Victorian import from Australia. In the eyes of those gathered at the San Jose DoubleTree, it qualified as “invasive,” “exotic,” “alien” — all dirty words to this crowd…

The Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Food Safety as co-lead petitioners joined by the Xerces Society and renowned monarch scientist Dr. Lincoln Brower filed a legal petition today to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seeking Endangered Species Act protection for monarch butterflies, which have declined by more than 90 percent in under 20 years.

During the same period it is estimated that these once-common iconic orange and black butterflies may have lost more than 165 million acres of habitat…

In Maryland, it is impossible to travel too far in any direction without seeing something that celebrates the legacy of author and environmentalist Rachel Carson.

There is a greenway trail and a conservation park named for her here, an alma mater university and a Rachel Carson grade school there — and, of course, the Silver Spring home where she would write “Silent Spring,” the hot-button ’60s work that is often cited as the spark that ignited the modern environmental movement.

The next time you’re tooling down the highway somewhere in America, take a look around: Those miles of medians and roadsides along our highways offer unexpected environmental benefits.

All those broad, green strips along the nation’s highways turn out be vital habitats for many small critters, as well as pollinators including bees, butterflies and birds.

Yesterday, the First Lady welcomed local students and FoodCorps leaders on the South Lawn for the sixth-annual planting of the White House Kitchen Garden.

The garden was first planted in 2009 to commence a nationwide conversation on healthy eating and inspired the First Lady to launch Let’s Move!

Recently there have been a number of articles in the press about how people are planting the wrong kind of milkweed and that it’s actually harming monarch butterflies. Inflammatory headlines have warned about how well intentioned people may actually be “destroying” monarchs and how “the plan to save monarchs” by planting milkweed has “backfired.”

Well, I’m here to tell you that there is no need to freak out. And Please, KEEP PLANTING MILKWEED! Here’s why.

Insect ecologist Chip Taylor is a friend to both the monarch butterfly and the honeybee. He’s been tracking monarchs and restoring their habitats since 1992.

And he’s worked with bees in French Guiana, Venezuela and Mexico.

Everyone is talking about the record low count of monarchs at their overwintering site in Mexico, but what does the science say is happening to them and why does it matter?

Monarch butterflies have a special place in the North American imagination. They are beautiful, plentiful, and have a legendary predator-repelling capacity.

Happy Valley is not as happy as it used to be. But maybe the news I report here will help Penn State people perk up a bit (well, o.k., a tiny bit).

My younger sister (I throw her that sop to make up for needling her on every birthday about becoming an old geezer) proudly reported that the milkweeds she planted in her backyard had not only attracted a few Monarchs, they were now harboring four Monarch larvae (caterpillars).

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, President Barack Obama, and President Enrique Peña Nieto share a common commitment to a competitive, low-carbon and sustainable North American economy and society.

The Paris Agreement was a turning point for our planet, representing unprecedented accord on the urgent need to take action to combat climate change through innovation and deployment of low-carbon solutions.

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.

Every year, monarch butterflies undertake what seems like an impossible journey.

By the millions, they leave their summer breeding grounds in the United States and Canada to fly thousands of miles to a small area of alpine forest in central Mexico.

Among the countless organisms that have evolved during the history of life on earth, monarch butterflies are among the most extraordinary.

Sadly, their unique multigenerational migration across our large continent, their spectacular overwintering aggregations on the volcanic mountains in central Mexico, and their educational value to children in Canada, the United States, and Mexico are all threatened. Monitoring of the butterfly population over the past two decades indicates a grim situation.

Sometime in the mid-1990s,Will Harris looked around at the Georgia farm that had been in his family for more than a century, and decided he didn’t want to pass it on to his daughters.

Not like this. His herd was unhappy. He was under constant financial stress.

Monarch numbers are declining; this decline is statistically significant (Brower et al. 2012) and readily apparent from data on the area occupied by monarchs on the overwintering roost in Mexico.

While we saw more monarchs during the summer of 2014 than we did last year or the year before, and will thus hopefully see more in Mexico this winter, it’s unlikely that the population will be anywhere near as large as it was a decade ago.