After 90 Percent Decline, Federal Protection Sought for Monarch Butterfly

[hue]

Source: The Xerces Society

Genetically Engineered Crops Are Major Driver in Population Crash

WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Food Safety as co-lead petitioners joined by the Xerces Society and renowned monarch scientist Dr. Lincoln Brower filed a legal petition today to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seeking Endangered Species Act protection for monarch butterflies, which have declined by more than 90 percent in under 20 years. During the same period it is estimated that these once-common iconic orange and black butterflies may have lost more than 165 million acres of habitat — an area about the size of Texas — including nearly a third of their summer breeding grounds.

“Monarchs are in a deadly free fall and the threats they face are now so large in scale that Endangered Species Act protection is needed sooner rather than later, while there is still time to reverse the severe decline in the heart of their range,” said Lincoln Brower, preeminent monarch researcher and conservationist, who has been studying the species since 1954.

“We’re at risk of losing a symbolic backyard beauty that has been part of the childhood of every generation of Americans,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The 90 percent drop in the monarch’s population is a loss so staggering that in human-population terms it would be like losing every living person in the United States except those in Florida and Ohio.”

The butterfly’s dramatic decline is being driven by the widespread planting of genetically engineered crops in the Midwest, where most monarchs are born. The vast majority of genetically engineered crops are made to be resistant to Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide, a uniquely potent killer of milkweed, the monarch caterpillar’s only food. The dramatic surge in Roundup use with Roundup Ready crops has virtually wiped out milkweed plants in midwestern corn and soybean fields.

Read more: http://www.xerces.org/after-90-percent-decline-federal-protection-sought-for-monarch-butterfly-2/

[Benton D Struckcheon]

1. I have not seen a monarch this year,

and I have milkweed planted in two different spots in my yard. There's also milkweed growing wild in a spot nearby that's kept wild as a buffer for a reservoir.
I've only seen one large butterfly of any variety, it was a big yellow one. Don't remember the name of that one off the top of my head. Haven't seen that single one in a few weeks. Even the smaller moth varieties that used to hang around a patch of mist flower I have are rare this year.
It's sad to see all these flowers with no life around them.

[hue]

4. Thanks for keeping milkweed! The large yellow butterfly may have been a Two-Tailed

Swallowtail.

[hue]

2. All pollinators are in decline d/t Monsanto as the article indicates.Thanks for keeping Milkweed!

It breaks my heart to see our pollinators dying d/t corporate greed. We really need to act quickly to save them!
Monarchs, & all butterflies are barometers of the health of our environment.

[freshwest]

5. I love them... This and the stories of the bees break my heart.

[Treant]

3. Two this year

In a garden designed to be Monarch-friendly. It's definitely a low point. Some years in the past, there were five or six at any one moment.

Honeybees are also in short supply, although our native bumblebees and sweat bees are filling in beautifully there and their numbers are rising to compensate.

Other pollinators, including local butterflies and sphinx moths, are in rich supply and populations look to be increasing year by year--probably to fill the niches left open by the decline of the honeybee.

[PSPS]

9. We have fewer bumble bees and I often see dead bumble bees on the ground - something new to me.

[Owl]

6. Only one Monarch this year. Half dozen bumblebees in spring.

Not a single honeybee seen. Apple trees at about 15%, despite huge flowering in spring.

Horrible.

Last year two monarch Chrysalis's on our milkweed, this year none.

[Baitball Blogger]

10. My neighbor gets his hedge sprayed and has weed killer applied.

I've seen the crop of gulf frits cut down in the last two years.

[Baitball Blogger]

7. That's wonderful!

I will more than happily would provide a part of my yard for milkweed, but the feds have to override HOA rules.

[lunasun]

8. If our collective push back on environmental problems stay at this rate

We are quickly screwing ourselves as a species ...along with plenty other ones too
And we will all be endangered species!!
Hard for a few allowing milkweed and planting to make up for the miles and acres gone

[shireen]

11. I found 9 caterpillars.

Eight survived. First time I've raised Monarchs from caterpillars. It was an amazing experience.

I'm just north of Baltimore, MD.

[NCarolinawoman]

12. Thank you.

Feel like giving you a big hug for doing this. Monarchs are beautiful little miracles. An inspiration to many people, including myself.

[hue]

22. Yes I thank You also!

[NCarolinawoman]

13. It better not be too late!!!

The beautiful Carolina Parakeet died out in the 1920's. Gone forever. I remember hearing this story as a child. I saw a picture and my grandfather told me about it. Died out from habitat loss, farmers shooting them and irresponsible hunters killing them for their pretty feathers or just for the fun of it.

Then there was the passenger pigeon, and now I read that the beautiful cerulean warbler is endangered from mountaintop removal.

[jberryhill]

14. this country should not be protecting monarchs

[ALBliberal]

15. sad

Steadily declining here in Albuquerque I take pictures of them when I can!

[indie9197]

17. I am in Los Alamos and I don't think I have seen one all year.

I just moved here a few months ago so I don't know what is normal. However, I do feed hummingbirds and there are lots of them up here!

[Hoppy]

16. I believe the decline has to do with a company called, Monsanto.

Every other offered explanation does not explain the rapid decline in insect population.

Habitat decline has been in evidence for hundreds of years.

Round-up, and gm plants, only for a few.

[vanlassie]

18. Barbara Kingsolver's book. Flight Behavior.

It's about this.

[Zorra]

33. Great book, great writer!

[jwirr]

19. I saw one today in my daughters back yard - the first I have seen this year. We should have started

saving the monarchs and the bees a long time ago.

[Live and Learn]

20. I had a bunch this year courtesy of some wild milkweeds that grew in my yard.

I had no idea what the weeds were but thought the flowers were pretty so I left the alone. Then one day I went to water them and there was nothing left.

n a panic, I searched the internet to find what had eaten them and discovered the world of monarchs. Sure enough I had a bunch of caterpillars and had to rush out and buy more milkweed plants so they wouldn't starve.

Now that I was paying more attention, I started noticing all the beautiful Monarch butterflys that kept visiting the yard and the plants. It was a wonderful summer learning experience.

[JDPriestly]

21. I'm trying to make my yard a refuge for these beautiful creatures.

I grow lots and lots of milkweed. It isn't an ugly plant, but there are prettier. But the Monarchs! They are so beautiful. We also have orange and yellow lantana that butterflies and hummingbirds love. Part of the immediate problem may be the drought in California this year.

Pave paradise. Put up a parking lot. Since Joni Mitchell sang that song, was it in the 1960s?, things have gone from bad to worse in terms of cement and asphalt and no plants or creatures. It's very sad.

[Live and Learn]

23. The milkweed that grew wild in my yard looked a lot like Lantana

(at least the flowers). I believe it is called Tropical Milkweed. I think it is pretty.

[JDPriestly]

24. It isn't bad at all. I love it and the Monarchs.

[spinbaby]

25. We've seen more this year

Here at the edge of the suburbs we still have lots of habitat. Perhaps we have more butterflies because of habitat loss elsewhere.

[NickB79]

26. Mexico has to get on board, or it's all for naught

If the wintering grounds there can't be protected from logging and cattle ranching, whatever we do here in the US is for nothing.

[RKP5637]

27. I grew up with them all over the place, they were beautiful, the fields next to our

house were filled with milkweed. Now, I hardly see any monarch butterflies anyplace.

[Progressive dog]

28. Don't farmers still use insecticides on crops?

I would think that an insecticide might kill insects, well before their food source was wiped out.

[wordpix]

29. 16,000 pesticides approved: 11,000 with incomplete or no testing

Thanks, EPA Revolving Door.

This + habitat destruction = 90% decline

Stats from NRDC with EPA confirmation.

http://www.nrdc.org/health/pesticides/files/flawed-epa-approval-process-IB.pdf p.1

[roamer65]

30. I have seen no monarchs and maybe 3-4 bumblebees this year.

They were around all the time when I was a kid 30 years ago in MI. Now very few if any.

[Earth_First]

31. It's so sad...

Generally the property is loaded with monarchs this time of year.

I bet I've seen four.

Glad to see that something is being done, however I fear we may have done irreparable damage to the ecosystem across the board.

:sigh:

[wordpix]

32. buy and grow organic b/c your food/water is laced with these pesticides

They're killing bees and butterflies and they're killing us, too---cancer and neurological diseases linked to pesticides, 16,000 approved and 11,000 applied to fields/lawns/gardens/homes with incomplete or NO testing.

This is EPA's doing along with Congressional "conditional registration" FIFRA loophole from 1972

[Marthe48]

34. Did we ever think we'd live to see this day?

I have seen a few of the blue butterflies, a couple of swallowtails, no Monarchs at all. I haven't seen June bugs, and very few small moths fly by my porch light. I didn't hear frogs chirping in the spring. I live right by wetlands and farms by the Ohio River and the 'Silent Spring' is heart-breaking. My daughter got some chickens to raise so she can have her own eggs. Her husband asked about non GMO-chicken feed and said he almost got laughed out of the store. The only good news I can tell you from this part of Ohio is that we went across the river to a wildlife refuge in Waverly, WV and there were several large stands of milkweed planted. No butterflies, but plenty of healthy plants. We are living in an overly controlled environment and there isn't going to be a happy ending.