{"id":10391,"date":"2025-09-11T14:38:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T14:38:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westernwildlifecorridor.org\/?p=10391"},"modified":"2025-09-11T14:39:02","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T14:39:02","slug":"monarchs-need-our-help-by-john-klein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westernwildlifecorridor.org\/index.php\/2025\/09\/11\/monarchs-need-our-help-by-john-klein\/","title":{"rendered":"Monarchs Need Our Help by John Klein"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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I have had the pleasure of working with monarch butterflies for more than 40 years, both thru my job at the Parks and on my own. Unfortunately, the population has decreased dramatically over the past 30 years and is now considered at risk.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Monarchs are not only one of the most beautiful butterflies, they also migrate further than any other insect. They are often referred to as the \u201cInternational Traveler\u201d, migrating from southern Canada to Mexico. What makes their migration even more amazing is that they go to the same small sites each year, even though none have ever made the trip before! That is because it is the fourth or fifth generation monarchs that live long enough each fall to make the long journey and survive till spring.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

A Citizen Science Project that includes tagging monarchs, has been going on well before the discovery of their overwintering sites in 1975 by Dr. Fred Urquhart with the University of Toronto, Canada. Before then, almost nobody knew where monarchs went in the fall. Local villagers in the mountains of Mexico did, however. They have long believed that the first arriving monarchs are the spirits of their ancestors returning around the \u201cDay of the Dead\u201d festival in Mexico on November 1st and 2nd each year. All of our monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains head to a remote mountainside in Mexico each year to spend the winter. Those west of the Rockies head to the coast of southern California. The eastern population is much larger, funneling thru the central, midwestern, and east coast States to get there. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Today, a group called \u201cMonarch Watch\u201d with the University of Kansas administers the tagging program with thousands of volunteers participating. I have been tagging them myself with other volunteers since 1983. I had the opportunity to visit an overwintering site in Mexico in 1991. The trip was organized by the Cincinnati Museum Center when the population was still high. It was a trip of a lifetime and an experience that I will never forget! There were tens of millions of monarchs clustered in a small section of forest on the side of a mountain. This destination is not a tropical paradise, but a cool place with temperatures just above freezing where they can rest. There are so many that tree branches sometimes break under their weight!\u00a0 <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Unfortunately, their numbers have been on a serious decline for several decades. Counts are made at the overwintering sites each year based on the amount of space the clusters of monarchs take up (number of Hectares). It was estimated that the eastern population was at around 19 million individuals last year, compared to more than 380 million in 1996! The western population was down from a high of 1.2 million to less than 2,000 in recent years!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The decline of the monarch butterfly has become so severe, that scientists are now forecasting how soon they will go extinct. For example: the eastern population has declined approximately 80% with an extinction probability of 56% to 74% by the year 2080. The western population has declined more than 95% since the 1980\u2019s with an extinction probability of more than 99% by 2080! It is so sad to think that future generations of children may not have the opportunity to experience the miracles of the monarch life cycle and migration.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed and is currently considering adding the monarch butterfly to the Endangered Species List. If designated, it will likely be on the “Threatened List\u201d as a precursor to possibly being added to the \u201cEndangered List\u201d at a later date. These designations come with some additional protections which may help curb or even reverse the decline. A recovery plan (according to the USF&W Service) must include: the need to increase the availability of milkweed and nectar plants, to protect and enhance overwintering habitat, to reduce the negative impacts of pesticides, and to maintain public support for monarch conservation by incentivizing volunteer efforts.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

What can we do here in the Midwest? We can plant and protect milkweed plants (the larvae\u2019s only food source) and provide more nectar-producing native flowers as food for the adults. It is also important to reduce the use of any pesticides in your lawn or gardens. I plan to present my \u201cThose Amazing Monarchs\u201d program at the Kirby Nature Center on September 13th, where more details about their life cycle will be discussed.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Hope to see you there!<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0 John Klein<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have had the pleasure of working with monarch butterflies for more than 40 years, both thru my job at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsletter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westernwildlifecorridor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westernwildlifecorridor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westernwildlifecorridor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westernwildlifecorridor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westernwildlifecorridor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10391"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.westernwildlifecorridor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10391\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10398,"href":"https:\/\/www.westernwildlifecorridor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10391\/revisions\/10398"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westernwildlifecorridor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westernwildlifecorridor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westernwildlifecorridor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westernwildlifecorridor.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}