Monarch population dwindling with second lowest numbers on record – WPR
Butterflies
Monarch butterflies and the decline of native pollinators | KAXE
Milkweed and Monarchs 🦋☠ 🐮
Milkweed and Monarchs 🦋☠ 🐮
A few months back I posted several articles that I found in my research and reading about milkweed – how it’s wonderful for wildlife and really poisonous for livestock.
There are darn good reasons why farmers spray it and work to eradicate it from their farm fields. It can kill horses and cattle if mixed with their hay. That’s a big deal if you depend on your land for your livelihood that keeps you living the rural life. Seeing an animal die a painful death is traumatic to all involved.
But we need milkweed to support butterflies and our ecosystem. Like everything, there is a time and place. A noxious weed on the farm can also sustain life of other species, be part of a healthy ecosystem. The efficiency of clearing fields of noxious weeds is blamed for the decline of many common butterflies.
What is the solution? Probably a mix of both farming and places where milkweed can be planted and sustained in yards, nature preserves and land set aside by private owners for conservation purposes.
Beloved monarch butterflies now listed as endangered | AP News
The monarch butterfly fluttered a step closer to extinction Thursday, as scientists put the iconic orange-and-black insect on the endangered list because of its fast dwindling numbers.
“It’s just a devastating decline,” said Stuart Pimm, an ecologist at Duke University who was not involved in the new listing. “This is one of the most recognizable butterflies in the world.”
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature added the migrating monarch butterfly for the first time to its “red list” of threatened species and categorized it as “endangered” — two steps from extinct.
The group estimates that the population of monarch butterflies in North America has declined between 22% and 72% over 10 years, depending on the measurement method.
“What we’re worried about is the rate of decline,” said Nick Haddad, a conservation biologist at Michigan State University. “It’s very easy to imagine how very quickly this butterfly could become even more imperiled.”
Western monarch populations grew over 100-fold in 2021. Why? | NOVA | PBS
NPR
But this year, the numbers are starting to pick up. Biologists and volunteers across California have already counted more than 100,000 monarchs.
Richard Rachman is the coordinator for the Xerces Society's annual Thanksgiving monarch count in Los Angeles County, and has been buoyed by the numbers.
Endangered-species decision expected on beloved butterfly
Trump administration officials are expected to say this week whether the monarch butterfly, a colorful and familiar backyard visitor now caught in a global extinction crisis, should receive federal designation as a threatened species.
Stepped-up use of farm herbicides, climate change and destruction of milkweed plants on which they depend have caused a massive decline of the orange-and-black butterflies, which long have flitted over meadows, gardens and wetlands across the U.S.