<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><font size="4" class="">Please know that the planting of tropical milkweed is not welcome in the central United States either!</font><div class=""><font size="4" class="">The common milkweed, <i class="">Aesclepias syriaca</i> is the mainstay for monarchs in the central flyway.</font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">Our concern is the planting of the tropical milkweed will lead to an invasive plant problem and also not be a healthy food source for monarch larva.</font></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">Related milkweeds that are native to the central migratory route include: butterflyweed, whorled milkweed, and swamp milkweed.</font></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><font size="4" class="">Bonnie L. Harper-Lore</font></div><div class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Nov 22, 2016, at 9:33 AM, Matthew Shepherd <<a href="mailto:matthew.shepherd@xerces.org" class="">matthew.shepherd@xerces.org</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="WordSection1" style="page: WordSection1; font-family: Futura-Medium; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: auto; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: auto; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">FROM: Monterey Herald</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""><a href="http://www.montereyherald.com/environment-and-nature/20161121/pacific-grove-its-time-for-the-monarch-count" style="color: rgb(149, 79, 114); text-decoration: underline;" class="">http://www.montereyherald.com/environment-and-nature/20161121/pacific-grove-its-time-for-the-monarch-count</a></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><b class=""><span style="font-size: 18pt;" class="">Pacific Grove: It’s time for the monarch count</span></b></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">By Sukee Bennett</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">Pacific Grove >> With deep concentration, they direct their gaze up the trees that play host to slumbering butterflies, silently counting the orange insects until they share their tally with neighboring volunteers.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">As monarchs flock to the verdant groves along the Central Coast this time of year, so do the volunteers and scientists, some of whom have been counting them religiously for 20 years.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">The Xerces Society Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count, which is the oldest and most robust assessment of wintering monarch in California, started Nov. 12 and runs through Dec. 4. It’s one of the many ways the Xerces Society, an invertebrate conservation group, works together with government agencies like U.S. Fish and Wildlife, nongovernmental organizations, scientists, farmers and citizens to study and protect the charismatic monarch butterfly, which has faced substantial declines in the past two decades.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">“Monarchs are kind of the pandas of the insect world,” said Emma Pelton, a conservation biologist at Xerces. “We have a lot of beautiful butterflies here in America, but (the monarchs are) bigger and brighter.”</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">Pelton, who has been interested in interactions between agriculture and wildlife for as long as she can remember, has been at Xerces for a little over a year — just long enough to participate in last fall’s annual monarch count. But scientists have been counting California’s wintering monarchs since 1997, when biologists Dennis Frey, David Marriott and Mia Monroe realized the species was declining.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">Both longstanding and first-year volunteers spend four weeks, centralized around Thanksgiving, scouring sites where monarchs are known to converge, including the Monarch Sanctuary in Pacific Grove, Del Monte Avenue in Monterey, the Moss Landing Middle School, the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, and Moran Lake and Manresa State Beach in Santa Cruz, and Pismo Beach. Volunteers count individual butterflies, pooling their results with other volunteers to form an average.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">“It’s a little bit of a guessing game, but that’s why we like to have experienced counters mentor new counters,” Pelton said.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">They also assess the habitat, taking note of which trees appear most popular to butterflies and the availability of nectar-producing plants in the area.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">This year, Bill Henry, director of Groundswell Coastal Ecology, a Santa Cruz-based organization that works on coastal advancements through education and community-based work, is partnering with Xerces. Together, they’re developing a management plan for the monarch grounds at the Lighthouse Field State Beach in Santa Cruz. Henry will also count the butterflies in northern Santa Cruz with Samantha Marcum, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife monarch butterfly coordinator.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">Marcum, who is volunteering with Xerces for the first time, said, “Working with the Xerces Society is a really positive experience. They’re really good at bringing people together to preserve monarchs.”</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">And Henry believes Xerces and its partners have been fundamental in gathering data needed to make well-informed decisions about preserving monarchs, whose populations have declined 74 percent in the last 20 years in California, according to Xerces scientists.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">“The length of the data is starting to get longer, and so you’re able to learn more about some of these patterns,” Henry said.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">But counting western monarchs in their winter habitat doesn’t tell the whole tale of their decline. To find out more, Xerces and U.S. Fish and Wildlife have just begun exploring where milkweed grows and where western monarchs breed.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">“Those are some areas where we’re lacking information,” said Marcum.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">Scientists already know that monarchs aren’t solely slumbering on the Central Coast; they’re now breeding here, too.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">“Year-round breeding is really new,” said Pelton, adding that the phenomenon was most likely spurred by climate change and people planting tropical milkweed.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">Monarchs are lighter sleepers than other hibernators like bears; they already move around in the winter months. And warmer winter temperatures, associated with climate change, may be putting them in the mood early.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">Tropical milkweed, which locals sometimes plant in an effort to help monarchs, may provide habitat and sustenance for growing caterpillars. But there are problems. Tropical milkweed isn’t native to the Central Coast. And, as its name suggests, it grows like a weed.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">“We don’t advocate people planting milkweed close to the coast,” Pelton said, adding that cultivating native pollinator species is a much better option.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">People can plant tropical milkweed with some success in the Midwest, where many eastern monarchs grow up. But California winters are too warm for the milkweed to ever die back. The plants end up carrying diseases that spread to the infantile insects eating them.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">Western monarchs raised on tropical milkweed usually have high disease loads, Pelton said. And they can transmit those diseases to healthy monarchs.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class="">But, despite the many threats they face, there’s a silver lining for monarchs. Now, more than ever, communities are coming together to help the species. The Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count is but one example.</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;" class=""> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"> </p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">----------</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">Matthew Shepherd</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">Communications Director</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class=""><image001.jpg></span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;" class=""><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class="">Protecting the Life That Sustains Us</span></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;" class=""> </span></p><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; 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