Tri- nation plan to protect monarch butterfly in works
An integrated conservation strategy by the governments of Mexico, Canada and the United States to protect the magnificent monarch butterfly could be ready as early as this fall.
On Wednesday, officials from the three countries provided an update on monarch butterfly collaboration during the 20th annual meeting of the Trilateral Committee for Wildlife and Ecosystem Conservation and Management.
“Canada is committed to conserving species at risk, including the monarch butterfly,” said Sue Milburn- Hopwood, director general for the Canadian Wildlife Service.
“We will continue to work with the United States and Mexico to develop the North American strategy to ensure we can recover this species.”
Monarch butterflies, a pollinator species, are important to ecosystems that support both people and wildlife in all three countries.
They breed in southern Canada and the northern United States, but migrate to Mexico in the winter.
“We’ve seen very steep declines in the Western population,” said Dan Ashe, director of U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The population, he said, has dropped to about 50 million in 2014 from about one billion butterflies less than 20 years ago.
Experts blame the drop in numbers on extreme weather, a decline of the butterflies’ habitat in Mexico from illegal logging and the displacement of milkweed in the U. S. and Canada, which the species feeds on.
In Canada, Milburn- Hopwood said work is underway by governments, conservation organizations, researchers and retailers to implement conservation efforts.
“The monarch butterfly faces many threats,” she said, noting the federal government is focused on the loss of breeding habitat.
It has also been listed as a species of special concern under the federal Species At Risk Act.
“Canada has developed a proposed management plan,” she said, explaining they’ve established a working group to come up with best management practices on farmland, as well as in natural gas and hydro corridors, for milkweed.
Earlier this year, conservationists said a national effort to plant milkweed is needed to reverse the decline in the monarch butterfly population.
They’re hoping the federal government will step up with money and moral persuasion to aid an effort they say needs to include power line, road and rail agencies.
Officials said everyone can play a part in protecting the species.
“Every citizen in Canada, the United States and Mexico has a personal role to play to help the monarchs,” said Ashe, noting it’s possible by planting milkweed and cutting back on pesticide use.
“Our challenge is to knit together actions to have a population- level impact for this magnificent animal.”
Ashe said they hope to present the three- nation conservation strategy to the North American Leaders’ Summit this fall. No date has yet been set for the meeting.