Help save the Monarchs! (flowers, grow, bugs, Butterfly Bush)
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...and other butterflies,bees,etc. I would like to encourage everyone to do all you can to plant native flowers that attract Monarchs & honeybees,as they are being seriously decimated by the increased use of chemicals & loss of habitat.
University of Kansas insect ecologist Orley R. “Chip” Taylor has been observing the fragile populations of monarch butterflies for decades, but he says he has never been more concerned about their future.
Monarchs are beloved for their spectacular migration across Canada and the United States to overwintering sites in central Mexico — and back again. But a new census taken at the monarchs’ wintering grounds found their population had declined 59 percent over the previous year and was at the lowest level ever measured.
In an interview with Yale Environment 360 contributor Richard Conniff, Taylor — founder and director of Monarch Watch, a conservation and outreach program — talked about the factors that have led to the sharp drop in the monarch population. Among them, Taylor said, is the increased planting of genetically modified corn in the U.S. Midwest, which has led to greater use of herbicides, which in turn kills the milkweed that is a prime food source for the butterflies.
We are overrun with bees right now, and it's still early for seeing monarchs. No shortage of pollinators here, that's for sure. My only problem is keeping the dogs from lurching at them.
We are overrun with bees right now, and it's still early for seeing monarchs. No shortage of pollinators here, that's for sure. My only problem is keeping the dogs from lurching at them.
Lots of sources for those who don't believe the Monarchs are in sharp decline...
Quote:
The decline in monarchs has been going on for two decades, but the last few years have been particularly worrisome. Mexico's National Commission of Natural Protected Areas reports a 59 percent decline in the area of forest there occupied by overwintering monarchs since December 2011. Meanwhile, the World Wildlife Fund reports that overwintering populations along the California coast have shrunk from more than a million individuals counted at 101 sites in 1997 to less than 60,000 at just 74 sites in 2009. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which maintains the "Red List" of endangered species around the world, recognizes the monarchs' annual migration as an "endangered biological phenomenon."
This has been warned of for over 50 years. I read Rachel Carsons "Silent Spring" when I was 11 and it made an impact on me. I have since reread the book just a few years ago and it still has an impact. She warned about the rampant and overzealous use of pesticides and herbicides and the damage they do to the entire enviornment and food chain. I do not use any chemicals, pesticides or herbicides on my property or on the yards I maintain through my yard service. I have planted blooming hedgerows on my property for the bees and birds and the benefits are seeing the birds raise their young on healthy bugs from my property and I am seeing a lot of bees here for a change. When I find butterfly weed in a clients yard, I encourage them to keep it for the butterflies. I planted lilacs, butterfly bushes, rosemary, privet and other bloomers that bloom over different times for a longer season.
This has been warned of for over 50 years. I read Rachel Carsons "Silent Spring" when I was 11 and it made an impact on me. I have since reread the book just a few years ago and it still has an impact. She warned about the rampant and overzealous use of pesticides and herbicides and the damage they do to the entire enviornment and food chain. I do not use any chemicals, pesticides or herbicides on my property or on the yards I maintain through my yard service. I have planted blooming hedgerows on my property for the bees and birds and the benefits are seeing the birds raise their young on healthy bugs from my property and I am seeing a lot of bees here for a change. When I find butterfly weed in a clients yard, I encourage them to keep it for the butterflies. I planted lilacs, butterfly bushes, rosemary, privet and other bloomers that bloom over different times for a longer season.
Thanks, I will have to get that book, I have heard of it! I am so glad to hear you have bees! Everyone here in my area say the same thing, no bees or butterflies, it is eerie. Saw this a bit ago, very interesting article about a Harvard professor who is also a sixth-generation beekeeper, & another scientist who ironically was inspired by Silent Spring! Odd timing, saw it just as I got an email notification about your post!!
Read this book by Barbara Kingsolver: "Flight Behavior". It's fictional, but it is about the plight of the monarch butterflies and how religious belief, beliefs about climate change, politics, and environmental beliefs all come to play in people's reaction to and beliefs about the situation. She also explains that so much of the problem is loss of habitat in Mexico, where Monarchs winter. Kingsolver's books always have an environmentalist POV, and I learn so much from her. Plus, it's just a good read!
We're surrounded by farmland too. That's why we have so many weeds. That's why it's hard to get anywhere; we're always following a tractor down the road.
Saving the monarchs is admirable but immediately linking it to pesticides and other evil intents misses what the people who actually are working to study and hopefully save them are saying. Conservation efforts to save them have been ongoing for years now and I spent time at a nature preserve doing just this.
The real culprit for the uneven amounts of butterfly sightings this year in your part of the country is drought, pure and simple lack of rain. Much of the midwest was scorched last year, with thousands upon thousands of acres or farmland not producing crops, just burned up corns stalks and fried alternative crops. Milkweed is no more resistant to drought than those crops were and it is essentially the only plant the monarch uses for food and breeding. It can't survive on alternative plants. Far fewer monarchs made it back down to Mexico and the southern reaches of the USA last fall in the annual migration south because they did not survive the drought conditions where they bred and in the actual migration. In addition there has been a dramatic decrease in their wintering habitat in Mexico that has been documented. This means even fewer had overwintering places and even fewer could return to the Midwest for spring migration. Without resorting to the constant refrain of blaming all sorts of boogeymen there is an explanation for the decline and by planting more milkweed and providing hospitable areas for the monarch we can help it recover.
One can help Monachs by planting Milkweed. This is the only plant that the larava monarch will feed on. There have been several butterfly farms popping up over the past few years. Several of these farms will sell the plants as well as the butterflies to help increase the population.
I wasn't going to return to this thread because of the fingerpointing at "the usual suspects", so I'm glad to see these last two posts. Milkweed -yes. And I plant as much of it as I can. I leave a good portion of our back field unmowed all summer just so the natives, especially wild milkweeds, grow and flower. But perennial asclepias is by far my favorite and has just gone into full bloom. Now we'll see the monarchs.
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