monarch butterfly

The orange-and-black monarch butterfly, known for migrating thousands of miles, would be protected as a threatened species under a proposal by the Interior Department on Tuesday. The monarch population has dropped by 80 percent since the 1980s due to loss of habitat, exposure to pesticides, and climate change.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will establish a Pollinator Conservation Center focusing on the decline of pollinating species, including the monarch butterfly, announced Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Thursday.

The monarch butterfly is imperiled by the loss of food and habitat as well as climate change but an expansion in its winter hibernation area was "a sign of recovery — albeit a fragile one," WWF said in an annual survey.

An annual survey of monarch butterflies hibernating in Mexico found that the population was 144 percent higher than it was in 2018. The results, said the World Wildlife Fund on Wednesday, offered “a testament to the power of conservation.”

For the second year in a row, the number of monarch butteflies spending the winter in Mexican forests has declined, said Alejandro Del Mazo, Mexico's commissioner for protected areas.

Monarch butterflies west of the Rocky Mountains are facing extinction, as the number wintering in California has plummeted by more than 90 percent since 1980, says a study published by the journal Biological Conservation. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is debating whether to grant endangered species status to the insect.

With avocado prices on the rise and American demand booming, Mexican farmers are cutting down trees to plant the fruit. “Avocado trees flourish at about the same altitude and climate as the pine and fir forests in the mountains of Michoacan, the state that produces most of Mexico’s avocados,” says The Seattle Times.

Iowa owes its incredibly productive soil to the prairie—the same prairie that farmers have spent decades ripping out, says The Washington Post. Midwestern growers were long instructed to destroy native grasslands in order to make room for row crops. But a new program called STRIPS (Science-based Trials of Rowcrops Integrated with Prairie Strips) hopes to convince the state’s farmers that they can decrease soil erosion and fertilizer runoff by planting native grasslands in between their regular crops.

Under terms of a settlement, the Interior Department will rule by June 30, 2019, whether the monarch butterfly, which has suffered a huge drop in population, deserves protection under the Endangered Species Act, said two environmental groups. The groups say without help, the well-known orange-and-black insect is at risk of extinction.

Two researchers at Cornell say the factors behind the decline in monarch butterfly populations are wider spread than the loss of milkweed, their summertime food source. They say the list includes sparse nectar sources in the fall, adverse weather and fragmentation of habitat.

Two environmental groups sued the Interior Department to force a decision on listing the monarch butterfly as an endangered species.

The monarch butterfly population, "after years of being ravaged by severe weather and shrinking habitats," shows signs of recovery, reports the New York Times.

Two environmental groups said they plan to sue the Interior Department to force a decision on whether to protect the monarch butterfly as a "threatened" animal under the Endangered Species Act.

When monarch butterflies migrate to Mexico for the winter, they flock to oyamel fir trees which grow on mountainsides at altitudes of 10,000 feet. "These dense, dark-green conifers protect the monarchs from cold and rainy winter nights," says Yale e360. With climate change, the firs are affected by hotter and drier conditions.

Monarch butterfly populations have dwindled over the years, so USDA is launching a project to create and enhance habitat for the iconic butterfly in 10 states in the southern Plains and the Midwest, says Jason Weller, chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service. It's a voluntary program, Weller writes in a USDA blog.

Ecology professor Art Shapiro of the University of California, who has monitored butterfly populations in Central America for decades, says monarch butterflies are having the best year in California in at least a decade, reports the U-C blog Bug Squad.