These few steps can help Monarch butterflies
Huge numbers of Monarch butterflies, known for their brightly colored orange and black wings, are laid each year in Kansas, as their young depend on the state’s milkweed as their sole source of food.
As habitat loss and climate change threatens their population, which has fallen by an estimated 85% since the 1980s, and they await their status as a protected endangered species, experts say Kansans can help these insects survive.
Tierra Curry, a senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity who has been working on getting Monarch’s protected status for seven years, became fascinated with the butterflies for their cultural significance and their generational tenacity.
“With Monarchs, it’s their great great great grandchildren who find their way back to these forests in Mexico to winter, where they’ve never even been,” Curry said. “It’s like the only known multi-generational migration like that.”
Dr. Orley Taylor, who founded and is the current director of Monarch Watch in Lawrence, Kansas, said people need to act if the Monarchs are to be saved.
“We have to keep the system together, which means that we have to move to maintain the integrity of the ecosystem that surrounds us and supports us,” Taylor said. “We’re dependent on this planet for providing us with the food and the resources that we are dependent on, the air, the water, the soil. These are not expendable. These are not things we have to dismiss.”
Climate Change Education
The number one thing people concerned about Monarch populations should educate themselves and others about climate change, Taylor said.
“There’s a lot of talk about it, but people dismiss it because they don’t look at the data,” Taylor said. “The data is undeniable. The data drives the conversation and the perception of what’s going on. It is only once you are aware of the data and you understand what’s happening that you can think of yourself as an agent of change, and that’s really what we have to do.”
Part of that is making conscious decisions to avoid using fossil fuels and wasting water and other resources, according to Taylor.
Support Efforts to Increase Monarch’s Habitat
Monarchs have lost approximately 147 million acres of habitat since the early 1990s, a space nearly three times the size of Kansas. For Monarch conservationists, their goal is to replace a million acres of habitat a year, to try and catch up with what was lost.
“That’s mostly happening in the Midwest, which is the crucial habitat for the Monarch butterflies,” Taylor said. “They live on those milkweeds as larvae. That’s how they sustain the whole population.”
Plant native milkweed and flowers
Kansas is hugely important to Monarch populations, and planting (or not removing) native milkweed and flowers can provide much needed food sources for the butterflies.
“Kansas is Monarch central, so if people leave milkweed where it naturally occurs, or actually plant milkweed in areas for the monarchs, that would help a lot,” Curry said. “Monarch adults forage on hundreds of different flowers, and they love Coneflowers, and Aster, especially during the late summer.”
Monarchs need flowers when they arrive in early summer, but also when they’re flying south through the state around September and early October. People should avoid planting tropical milkweed, as it’s an invasive species that can wreak havoc on the local ecology.
Avoid Insecticides
Homeowners and gardeners should avoid the use of insecticides, and cities should be careful as well.
“There was a big monarch kill in North Dakota this year because they sprayed for mosquitoes,” Curry said. “Embracing alternative ways to deal with mosquitoes, so you’re not aerial spraying insecticide.”
When possible, Curry also recommends choosing organic corn and soy products at the grocery store, which wouldn’t have been grown using insecticides that hurt the Monarchs.
Build a Monarch Way Station
In 2004, Taylor started teaching groups how to make Monarch habitats and started the Monarch Waystation Program.
“We now have over 30,000 registered Monarch way stations around the country, and we have waystations in five other countries,” Taylor said.
Homeowners and businesses can join the National Zoo, National Arboretum and National Geographic building in creating waystations that provide resources for Monarchs during their migration.
Creating a waystation can be as simple as adding milkweed and flowers that provide nectar to an existing garden, according to Monarch Watch. More information on how to build a waystation can be found at https://monarchwatch.org/waystations/.
This story was originally published December 14, 2020 at 5:01 AM with the headline "These few steps can help Monarch butterflies."
