B.C. golf courses join plan to help monarch butterflies
Numbers of the majestic monarch butterfly have been in a free fall and a plan hatched with the help of golf courses across North America, including two in B.C., is hoping to bring them flying back.
The number of the summer visitors to flower gardens and wildflower fields has plummeted 90 per cent over the past 20 years, according to Audubon International.
“And it’s worse in the western population, where you are, where there’s been a 95 per cent drop in numbers,” said Marcus Gray of Audubon International.
In Canada, the monarch is listed as threatened on the Canadian government’s species-at-risk registry. “The situation is not good,” he said.
The species at risk website says the eastern migratory group moves between east of the Rockies to the Oyamel Forest of central Mexico, where “declines of greater than 50 per cent have occurred over the past decade.” The western migratory group from southern B.C. overwinters along coastal California.
To reverse the downward trend, Audubon along with the Environmental Defense Fund, in January launched Monarchs in the Rough, which provides free seeds to grow milkweed — where monarchs lay their eggs and on which caterpillars feed — and nectar-producing wildflowers to golf courses that volunteer to participate.
The Fairmont Chateau Whistler and Victoria’s Arbutus Ridge golf courses are among the 30 courses across Canada and the 250 so far across the U.S. that have committed to growing the flowers on a half hectare of land on their courses.
Chateau Whistler has signed up and is awaiting its shipment of seeds, said the hotel’s head gardener, Jennifer O’Rourke.
She said Monarchs in the Rough fits in with the hotel’s plan to increase the number of pollinating plants to attract bees, hummingbirds and butterflies, she said. The resort’s bee hives produce 635 kilograms of honey a year for use in its restaurants.
“We don’t want to have a negative effect on the area,” said O’Rourke. “We occupy a large chunk of land on the side of the mountain and we want to keep it as natural and attractive as it can be.”
The planting program has been so successful, Audubon International upped its original goal of 100 courses to 500 after they immediately had 250 join, said Gray.
The wildflower meadows will hopefully attract more monarchs and other butterflies and bees and birds, he said.
The program is open to any golf course in Canada, the U.S. or Mexico.
Monarchs are a critical element in the North American ecosystem, pollinating a number of wild flowers and serving as food for birds and other insects.
Gray said Monarchs in the Rough can also serve to educate golfers and other customers to the courses the importance of planting flowers and keeping pesticide use down.
“Anybody that has property can plant flowers that will attract butterflies,” he said.
Even with the 90 to 95 per cent drop over the last two decades, there are good and bad years for monarch populations.
This year will likely be a particularly bad year because of extreme weather last fall, according to scientists.
The orange-and-black beauties traditionally start their 5,000-kilometre migration north from Mexico to Canada, or a shorter distance from California to B.C., in early spring.
But a survey showed a 15 per cent drop in the numbers of monarchs in the fir forests of central Mexico where they hibernate each winter, according to a report in March by the World Wildlife Fund and the Mexican National Commission for Protected Areas Right.
The fund said that meant 16 million fewer monarchs than this time last year.
Last year, a warmer than usual fall tricked monarchs into delaying their annual trip south. When they eventually left, many were killed in hurricanes and tropical storms, according to one of the researchers.
Habitat loss due to deforestation coupled with extreme weather events linked to climate change are largely to blame for the drop in numbers over the years, said the WWF report.