[Pollinator] Bad News About Monarch Butterflies in California and Elsewhere

Fri Jan 31 07:20:47 PST 2014

<http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewild/invertebrates/bad-news-on-monarch-
butterflies-part-of-long-trend-in-california.html> Bad News About Monarch
Butterflies in California and Elsewhere

by  <http://www.kcet.org/user/profile/cclarke> Chris Clarke 

on January 30, 2014 5:17 PM

<http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewild/invertebrates/bad-news-on-monarch-
butterflies-part-of-long-trend-in-california.html>
http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewild/invertebrates/bad-news-on-monarch-b
utterflies-part-of-long-trend-in-california.html

http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewild/assets_c/2014/01/monarch-butterflie
s-in-trouble-1-30-14-thumb-600x400-67876.jpg

This month in Pismo Beach | Photo:
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/lorenjavier/11746666925/> Castles, capes and
clones/Flickr/ <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en>
Creative Commons License

North America's monarch butterflies are in trouble, a sad fact that's making
the news this week. Habitat destruction seems to be the main cause, with
Midwestern farmers' eradication of the milkweed the emblemic butterflies
need to reproduce fingered by scientists as a main reason for the decline.

That means more than just a drop in the numbers of the dramatically colored
butterfly: it also means a possible end to one of the continent's most
impressive natural spectacles: the annual migration of millions of monarchs
between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. 

And the problem isn't limited to the Midwest. According to a fifteen-year
study of western monarch numbers by a leading butterfly conservation group,
the monarch's numbers are crashing in California as well.

The monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus, may well be the most popular insect
in North America. For years, the spectacle of the orange and black
butterflies gathering by the millions has attracted admirers to wintering
grounds in Central Mexico, and summer gathering spots along the California
coast. 

As the annual migration takes longer than the usual lifespan of a monarch
adult, the butterflies must breed along the way. That means that migrating
butterflies must find stands of milkweed plants, any of a number of species
of the genus Asclepias that are the only plants their larvae can eat. If
there isn't enough milkweed, the butterflies can't replenish their numbers
and the migration thins.

In a
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/30/us/monarch-butterflies-falter-under-extre
me-weather.html> joint press conference Wednesday, representatives of the
Mexican Government and the World Wildlife Fund reported that only half as
many monarchs arrived this year as last year at their overwintering area in
the Mexican Sierra Madre. (That's the winter destination for monarchs from
east of the Rocky Mountains.) By comparison, in 1996 more than 25 times as
many monarchs found their way to the Sierra Madre as did this winter.

The drop from last year is likely due at least in part to bad weather. But
the much more dramatic long-term drop in numbers is likely the result of
near-eradication of milkweed from much of the Great Plains.

The decline in Great Plains milkweed can be laid at the feet of agriculture.
Subsidies for ethanol production have prompted the conversion of vast areas
of monarch milkweed habitat to cornfields. Some critics are pointing an
accusing finger at GMO crops as well, saying that herbicide-resistant food
crops promote the use of weed-killers that kill milkweed. (Which would mean
it's the herbicide rather than the GMO doing the damage, but that may be a
fine point.)

But it's not just eastern monarchs that are declining. According to the
invertebrate conservation group the Xerces Society, California's migrating
monarch butterflies may have declined in number by as much as 90 percent
between 1997 and 2012.

The  <http://www.xerces.org/mission/> Xerces Society, named in 1971 after a
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerces_Blue> species of California butterfly
driven to extinction by development in California, has conducted an annual
<http://www.xerces.org/butterfly-conservation/western-monarch-thanksgiving-c
ount/> Thanksgiving monarch butterfly count since 1997 at about 100
locations in California, as well as another dozen or so in Baja California
and Arizona. 

Though the stats for the 2013 count are still being compiled, the
<http://www.xerces.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/WMTC-Data-1997-2012-Update
d-1-NOV-2013.pdf> figures for '97 through 2012 are sobering. In 1997,
Xerces' volunteer counters recorded an estimated 1,235,490 monarchs at 101
sites in California and Baja. By 2012, that number had dropped to 144,650,
less than 12 percent of the 1997 count, despite the fact that 2012's count
covered an additional 19 sites.

At nearly all of the count sites listed numbers dropped precipitously after
1997, with places that had once hosted thousands of visiting monarchs
subsequently seeing a few hundred, and sometimes none.

<http://www.kcet.org/living/travel/socal_wanderer/wildlife-viewing/monarch-b
utterfly-counts.html> Some locations have informally reported that their
2013 monarch count numbers were up compared to 2012, but even if that holds
true across the state, the long-term trends are still troubling.

California's milkweeds are just as susceptible to being sprayed and plowed
under as their midwestern relatives, but they also have drought, fire, and
spreading urban development to contend with. When hillsides are too dry for
milkweed seeds to germinate, or when whole swathes of grassland burn down,
the butterflies go without food for their caterpillars.

This is one of those wildlife depletion issues where individual Californians
can make a difference, by planting milkweeds in their gardens.
<http://www.calflora.org/cgi-bin/specieslist.cgi?where-prettyreglist=any&whe
re-namesoup=asclepias&where-caltranslifeform2=any&where-native=t&rel-rarity=
invalue&where-rarity=any&rel-calipc=gte&rel-upper_elev=gt&where-upper_elev=&
rel-lower_elev=lt&where-lower_elev=&where-category=any&where-pretty_plantcom
m=any&orderby=taxon> Some California native milkweeds are even showy, and
the site
<http://monarchwatch.org/bring-back-the-monarchs/resources/plant-seed-suppli
ers> Monarch Watch offers a list of potential sources.

Planting a bit of a butterfly garden might seem like a small thing, but at
this point the monarchs need every little bit of help they can get.

 <http://www.kcet.org/user/profile/cclarke> Bad News About Monarch
Butterflies in California and Elsewhere

About the Author

Chris Clarke is a natural history writer and environmental journalist
currently at work on a book about the Joshua tree. He lives in Joshua Tree.
<http://www.kcet.org/user/profile/cclarke> MORE
<http://www.kcet.org/user/profile/cclarke> Read more

_______

Scott Hoffman Black

Executive Director

     The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

Chair

     IUCN Butterfly Specialist Group

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

628 NE Broadway, Suite 200, Portland, OR 97232, USA

 <https://webmail.integra.net/src/compose.php?send_to=sblack%40xerces.org>
sblack at xerces.org

Tel: (503) 232-6639 ext. 101

Toll free: 1-855-232-6639 ext. 101

Cell: (503) 449-3792

Connect with Xerces:
 <http://www.xerces.org/> xerces.org
<http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Xerces-Society/193182577358618> Facebook
<http://www.xerces.org/enewsletters/> E-newsletter
<https://twitter.com/xerces_society> Twitter

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation is an international
nonprofit organization that protects wildlife through the conservation of
invertebrates and their habitat.

To join the Society, make a contribution, or read about our work, please
visit  <http://www.xerces.org/> www.xerces.org.

Buy our best-selling book:

<http://www.xerces.org/announcing-the-publication-of-attracting-native-polli
nators/> Attracting Native Pollinators. Protecting North America's Bees and
Butterflies

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