Butterflies 📍
conservation’s orange flag – Adirondack Explorer
In the 1990s and early 2000s, Jenkins said, he would tag hundreds of monarchs in a week. Now, like many others across the continent, he sees fewer monarchs each year, though there are occasional influxes. Some years, the number he tags drops to single digits.
Jenkins is witnessing the North American monarchs’ rapid decline firsthand. Eastern monarch populations have decreased by at least 80 percent in the past two decades, according to Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. The Western monarch, which migrates only on the coast of California, has declined by 99 percent. The entire North American population is currently under review to be placed under the Endangered Species Act.
Monarchs will migrate to Mexico sporting stickers from Buffalo – The Buffalo News
It was an unusual sight Tuesday in Riverside Park. A group of University at Buffalo students armed with white, mesh butterfly nets fanned out over the Olmsted park in the northwest corner of Buffalo in search of common milkweed.
The unadorned, bushlike plant with the oblong leaves might be considered an unattractive nuisance in most gardens.
However, it is the primary source of sustenance for the monarch butterfly. It was purposely planted in various spots in the park by the Olmsted Parks Conservancy to attract the butterfly.
That makes Riverside Park an ideal place for capturing and tagging the colorfully winged critters before they continue their migration south, said Dr. Nicholas Henshue, a professor in the Department of Environment and Sustainability at UB.
