Two environmental groups sued the Interior Department to force a decision on listing the monarch butterfly as an endangered species. The groups, the Center for Food Safety and the Center for Biological Diversity, along with several allies, petitioned the department in August 2014 to protect the orange-and-black butterfly. The government launched a review of the butterfly’s status in December of that year. Up to a year is allowed for the reviews.
The lawsuit asks for a federal judge in Arizona to set a deadline for Interior’s decision. “Protecting monarch butterflies under the Endangered Species Act is essential to their survival, and further agency delay is unlawful and irresponsible,” said attorney George Kimbrell of the Center for Food Safety.
Activists blame the 90 percent decline in the monarch population since the 1990s in part on habitat loss and increased herbicide use, particularly glyphosate, on U.S. farms. In a statement, the plaintiffs said summer breeding grounds have declined by an estimated one-third in the past 20 years. Other factors are climate change, adverse weather, disease, predators, urban sprawl and logging of the Mexican forests where the butterfly spends the winter.