California is trying to restore monarch butterflies’ reign
Population has dipped 100% from 30 years ago
California is working on its own butterfly effect to bring back monarch butterflies.
Across the state, environmental and nature conservation organizations are teaming up to create and restore suitable habitats for the butterflies, which in the past would migrate by the tens of thousands to California ahead of winter.
The monarch butterfly population in the region had declined 99.9% from three decades ago; only about 1,900 were found in a survey over the 2020 Thanksgiving holiday along the California coast by the Xerces Society, a conservation group based in Portland, Oregon. More than 1.2 million monarch butterflies were reported in 1997, according to the group.
Western monarch butterflies, which come from the Pacific Northwest and west of the Rocky Mountains, spend the winter along the California coast. Eastern monarch butterflies, which typically remain east of the Rockies and head to Mexico for the winter, have seen population declines of about 80%, said Xerces Society executive director Scott Hoffman Black.
So far this year, spotters in Western states have seen “a few more monarchs” than last year, Black said, referencing the Western Monarch Milkweed Mapper project.
That is good news, he told USA TODAY, but “these are very early numbers, so we need to be cautious to not read too much into this. … but the numbers do lend some hope that we could see a slight rebound in Western population.”
At Orville Schell Farms, Ole Schell wants to help revitalize the butterfly population by creating a monarch sanctuary on the property just north of San Francisco in Bolinas, California.
His monarch habitat revitalization plan, created with the help of the Xerces Society, includes planting more than 1,200 native nectar-producing flowers, shrubs and grasses. The 206acre farm is used to grow apples, blueberries and other fruits, which are sold to a local restaurant, Schell said.
With the help of veterans group Guardian Grange, Schell recently put down mulch and planted native flowering
plants friendly to butterflies and other pollinator insects. They put up 8foot fencing to keep deer out of butterfly habitat areas, because deer snack on the plants, he said.
Schell remembered monarchs aplenty when he was boy on the ranch and farm his father started in the 1970s.
Housing expansion, drought and wildfires have depleted butterfly habitat, and pesticides and herbicides have brought the monarch butterfly to the brink of extinction.
“Like all ecosystem collapse, the problem is not necessarily one thing, but many things over time which leads to destruction,” said Mark Matzeldelaflor, founder of Guardian Grange, in an Instagram post.
A former Navy SEAL, Matzeldelaflor founded Guardian Grange last year to help veterans reintegrate with society while working on projects aiming to protect natural resources. “Just being out and present in nature with other people I feel is a really powerful way of reconnecting and healing,” he said.
Supporters had hoped the monarch would be declared a threatened or endangered species last year by the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service. But the service said the butterfly had to wait its turn because higher-priority species already were in line for consideration to be listed in the Endangered Species Act.
Legislation could yield funding for projects to boost butterfly protection. The Xerces Society is supporting the Monarch Act of 2021, introduced in both houses of Congress, to provide $25 million over the next five years to foster monarch habitats. And within the Biden administration’s proposed infrastructure bill, there’s a separate Monarch and Pollinator Highway Act of 2021, which provides $2 million a year for the Transportation Department to encourage the growth of pollinator plants.
Meanwhile, a statewide Wildlife Conservation Board initiative this year planted more than 30,000 milkweed plants from north of Sacramento to south of San Diego. The plants serve as a habitat for butterfly eggs and food for monarch caterpillars.
Schell’s advice: Check with local nurseries that offer native plants. “You can get a few plants as long as you do it right, and you will see results.”