Wisconsin groups work to save monarch butterflies
Butterflies are beautiful but endangered
A monarch butterfly caterpillar feeds on a common milkweed plant. Milkweeds are the only plants that monarch butterflies will lay their eggs on and that monarch caterpillars will eat, so they are critical for sustaining monarch populations. RAY MUELLER
Groups across the state are joining forces to save some of Wisconsin’s favorite residents: monarch butterflies.
Monarch populations across the eastern United States have declined more than 80% in the past 20 years and researchers worry they’re at risk for being lost entirely.
That’s why more than 70 groups across Wisconsin are cooperating in an "all hands on deck" effort they are calling the Wisconsin Monarch Collaborative.
“This collaborative is necessary because the challenge of recovering the population to the extent needed is too big for any one landowner or land use type to do alone,” says Craig Ficenec, program director for the Sand County Foundation, a Wisconsin-based nonprofit that promotes voluntary conservation efforts by private landowners.
Ficenec isn’t just speaking in generalities: last year, researchers from across the country quantified how much land would need to be converted to habitat to save the monarchs — and compared it to how much land is available to do so.
The researchers focused on the plants monarch caterpillars exclusively eat: milkweeds. They started with an estimate that 1.3 billion stems of milkweed have been lost from the landscape and would need to be added back to ensure monarch survival. Then they looked across the Eastern U.S. at power lines, railroads, roadside rights of way, marginal cropland, land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program and other urban and suburban lands to see if this number of milkweeds could be achieved.
They found that planting 1.3 billion milkweeds is possible — but only if they’re planted on land from every sector.
All hands on deck
The new Wisconsin Monarch Collaborative aims to support these differ-
ent sectors across the state — like nonprofits, government, agricultural communities, utility companies, county parks and more — to organize among themselves to plan what actions they can take to help, voluntarily.
Wisconsin isn’t the only state where folks are choosing to take dramatic action; 15 others are also part of the Mid-American Monarch Conservation Strategy led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This group includes a 20-year plan to help monarchs but allows states to take individualized action that’s best for their landscape — and their citizens.
The monarch butterfly was submitted for consideration for the federal endangered species list in 2014 and the decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be announced June 2019.
Many hope that sufficient action now could prevent monarchs from ever joining the list, which would avoid politicizing the species over regulation disputes. Plus, action now could prevent the need for dramatic measures like the costly captive breeding programs that have been attempted to save other North American butterfly species from the brink of extinction.
“One of the really exciting things to me is that monarch conservation in particular, and pollinators in general, really cuts across society,” says Owen Boyle, species management section chief with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and the DNR’s lead representative to the new collaborative.
“Most anybody can contribute habitat,” says Boyle. “Most rare and declining species are out in the wilderness, that’s just where they’re at. But you can plant milkweed and flowers that are going to feed monarchs. You can put flowering plants out on your city balcony and get (pollinators). Regardless of where you live or what you do, you can provide habitat for monarchs.”
Milkweed is a native wildflower that comes in all shapes, sizes and colors. The shrubby butterfly weed flowers in a vibrant orange, gardener-favorite swamp milkweed blooms tall in pink and purple, while the common milkweed explodes with pale pink pompons the size of softballs. Even the understated whorled milkweed that blooms in white somehow still provides forage for caterpillars that grow much larger than its spindly leaves.
These milkweeds can be planted alone, in gardens or in all sorts of prairie plantings like grasslands enrolled in the USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program, the Sand County Foundation’s prairie strips, or any restored prairie across the state. Planting milkweed alongside other native prairie plants is best for monarchs since they can eat the nectar from other wildflowers.
Prairie plants provide other benefits besides monarch habitat. They provide habitat for bees and other wildlife and can absorb water and nutrient runoff with their exceptionally deep roots. Since they’re native, these plants don’t require watering and fertilizing after they’re established. And since they’re perennial, they can be maintained for decades with only occasional management like mowing, weed control or — for larger parcels —prescribed fire.
Karen Oberhauser, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and director of the UW-Madison Arboretum, has studied monarchs for more than 30 years. “We're so happy that so many different organizations in Wisconsin are getting involved in monarch conservation,” says Oberhauser. “It's really important that this is a grass-roots effort that involves people that work and live on all different kinds of land.”
How to get involved?
Ficenec says: “The first question one could ask oneself: What do I have influence over on property? If I live in a quarter-acre suburban lot, I can create a pollinator garden. If I'm a farmer, and maybe my equivalent is a corner of a field that is maybe itself a quarter-acre, maybe it’s the hardest to get to to farm, maybe that can be set aside for pollinators. We're not asking farmers to take fields out of production, but there's nooks and crannies in the field, there's underutilized un-cropped area.”
When to plant milkweed
Monarchs lay eggs throughout the summer, from about mid-May to the end of August. It's not too late to plant adult milkweed plants for this year's monarchs. Check your local plant nursery and be sure to stick to native milkweeds — some tags might say Asclepias, their scientific name.
When to sow milkweed seeds
Milkweeds are also easy to propagate from seeds. Seeds are best planted in October or November, before the first major snow (seeds sown on top of snow will just get eaten). The seeds stratify over the winter, which encourages them to germinate next spring. Milkweed seeds are commercially available; you likely need a permit to collect seeds of your own, so contact your local DNR office before helping yourself to "wild" seeds.