Monarch Butterfly Population Rejuvenated After Last Year’s Record Low

The David Suzuki Foundation is calling on governments and rail, road and hydro agencies across Canada to join the growing ranks of milkweed lovers who are rallying to support monarch butterfly conservation.

Over the past month, U.S. federal and state agencies have made encouraging announcements, including a commitment of US$3.2 million for programs to grow milkweed — the plant monarchs depend on — in schoolyards and gardens and on highway roadsides from Mexico to Minnesota.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are not high on most physicians’ worry lists. If we think at all about biotechnology, most of us probably focus on direct threats to human health, such as prospects for converting pathogens to biologic weapons or the implications of new technologies for editing the human germline.

But while those debates simmer, the application of biotechnology to agriculture has been rapid and aggressive.

For longtime butterfly lover Nina Veteto, a plant called Milkweed is the answer to the disappearing Monarch butterfly and their declining 2,000-mile annual migration.

Based in North Carolina, Nina’s project Divide and Multiply aims to propagate Milkweed, which is essential for healthy Monarch habitat. They will then distribute the plants to 15 non-profit organizations and schools that have signed on to maintain butterfly habitat this year.

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.

Off the southern coast of California, just across the border from Tijuana, Mexico, dolphins swim around the fence that juts out into the Pacific Ocean. “They don’t really care,” said Jeff Crooks, a University of San Diego scientist who has been doing research along the U.S.-Mexico border for the past 16 years.

The border fence here was built long before President Trump’s campaign promises to “build a wall.”

They fly through the Louisville area each year on their way from Canada to Mexico — an iconic flutter of orange and black that has taught generations of Americans about the biology of life cycles and metamorphosis, but now may be at risk of vanishing.

Monarch butterfly populations have plummeted so much that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now believes there might be reason to protect them under the Endangered Species Act.

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.

Mexican poet Homero Aridjis wants to build a solar barrier between his country and the United States — and have the United States pay for it by selling electricity to customers in border cities.

Aridjis, an internationally known poet, novelist and environmental leader, said he has received overwhelming support for the Mexican-built barrier, first proposed by him and James Ramey in a December article on the Huffington Post website.

Enhancing Native Pollinator Populations on Farms. We need these farming partners to pollinate our fruit and vegetable crops, yet our native pollinators and honey bees are struggling from multiple threats of pesticide exposure, habitat loss, parasites and diseases.

John Hayden from The Farm Between in Jeffersonville, VT will present on who the native pollinators are, why they are in trouble…

Make Way for Monarchs’ endorsement of the Moral Action on Climate Rally in September began with an idea to promote monarch conservation and to share locally native milkweed seed with the larger community to & raise the level of awareness on habitat of pollinators.

We initially hoped parents attending the Moral Action on Climate Rally on 9/24 on the National Mall would allow their young kids to dress up as little “pollinators” – honeybees, butterflies, dragonflies and bats…

Stephanie Spencer considers monarch butterflies a staple of classroom learning. As a first grade teacher, she brought monarchs into her classroom to illustrate required content on life cycles.

Years later she began teaching third grade, and monarchs became the focus of her unit on migration.

As 2014’s National Pollinator Week begins, it is time to think critically about what constitutes tangible actions and credible research on behalf of monarch conservation in the midst of a key moment in American conservation history. Many conservationists fear that green-washing and tokenism will distract the public from supporting the essential work…

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.

Habitat loss and the destruction of native plants have been responsible for the rapid decline of the monarch butterfly, the most recognized butterfly in North America. To help protect these majestic insects as they migrate, citizens in the U.S. are resorting to a simple yet powerful tool: gardening.

Gardens full of milkweed and nectar plants can serve both as rest stops for adult monarchs and as nurseries for their eggs.

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