Pollinator Giving Trees – a fun hands-on project to learn about pollinators

North America forms the core of the monarch’s distribution but the overall range extends through Central America and the Caribbean to South America. Monarchs also occur in Hawaii, Australia, and several Pacific islands, as well as parts of Asia, Africa, and southern Europe (Zhan et al. 2014).

Several populations outside of the Americas appear to be nonnative, originating from introductions that are thought to have occurred in the 1800s (Vane-Wright 1993), but Zhan et al. (2014) suggests that introductions may have occurred much earlier.

Partners and other stakeholders convened October 2nd and 3rd at the Monarch Joint Venture annual meeting held at the USFWS National Conservation Training Center, and what a great meeting it was! An enthusiastic group gathered to explore potential partnerships through the MJV and discuss next steps for monarch conservation.

For many, it was an opportunity to network with other monarch conservation experts and strengthen existing programs by forming new collaborations.

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…

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.

A group of Michigan State University researchers say there is a nexus between large-scale deaths of Monarch butterflies and the application of the widely applied herbicide glyphosate.

Their study looked at the application of glyphosate in counties in Illinois and Texas during different seasons in an effort to better understand its potential effect on the population of Monarch butterflies – which has been in sharp decline in recent years.

Thanksgiving was right around the corner, and a sizable number of one of America’s most famous migrants could be seen still sputtering south. Not across the Texas-Mexico border, where most monarch butterflies should be by that time of year. These fluttered tardily through the migratory funnel that is Cape May, N.J., their iconic orange-and-black patterns splashing against the muted green of pines frosted by the season’s first chill.

This delayed migration is not normal, and it alarmed monarch researchers across the country.

Early in 1958 after living for 6 months in her new house on Berwick Road Rachel Carson started the four year long writing project that would become her renowned Silent Spring.

Rachel’s observations of the nature she loved from the wide windows of her home provided joyful relief from the gathering of somber subject matter for her new book and served to remind her of a compelling reason for accepting this challenge –the urgent need to protect life on the planet from toxic chemical pesticide threats.

Milkweed loss in agricultural fields because of herbicide use: effect on the monarch butterfly population Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus L….

Monarch butterflies: They are the iconic symbols of international cooperation in North America in the face of climate change.

Because of their long distance migration across a variety of climates and habitats, monarchs serve as a messenger of the collective global effects of climate change interacting with a variety of other stressors, natural and human-triggered.

The main cause of the monarch butterfly’s decline is the loss of milkweed — its food — in its U.S. breeding grounds, a new study has found. That all but confirms that the spread of genetically modified crops is indirectly killing the monarch.

This past winter, the number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico fell to its lowest since 1993, when records first started being kept, the World Wildlife Fund and Mexico’s Environment Department reported in January.

This comprehensive report reveals the severe impacts of herbicide-resistant genetically engineered (GE) crops on the monarch population, which has plummeted over the past twenty years.

The report makes it abundantly clear: two decades of Roundup Ready crops have nearly eradicated milkweed – the monarch caterpillar’s sole source of food – in cropland of the monarch’s vital Midwest breeding ground.

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.

Monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico each fall from Canada and the United States to overwinter in forested areas in mountains…

Pollinators—including honeybees, bumble bees, butterflies, and other insects—play an important role in our farms, flower gardens, and food.

In fact, some of the crops most important to Oregon’s agricultural economy—blueberries, raspberries, cherries, apples, vegetable seed, squash—are reliant on bees for pollination and reproduction.