NEWS

Threatened status sought for monarch butterfly

Molly Murray
The News Journal

Three conservation organizations and a noted scientist have asked the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to protect the monarch butterfly and list it as a threatened species, pointing to a dramatic population decline over the last 20 years.

The Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Food Safety were joined Tuesday morning by the Xerces Society and monarch scientist Lincoln Brower in a petition to seek Endangered Species Act protection for the iconic orange and black butterflies.

"We're at risk of losing a symbolic backyard beauty that has been part of the childhood of every generation of Americans," said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. "The 90 percent drop in the monarch's population is a loss so staggering that in human population terms, it would be like losing every living person in the United States except those in Florida and Ohio."

The petition lists a series of issues, including the loss of millions of acres of monarch feeding and breeding habitat in the country's mid-section.

Some of that habitat was converted to farmland, as grain prices have increased with the production of biofuels such as corn-based ethanol; farming practices have shifted to use more herbicide-resistant crops, a process that allows farmers to more effectively eradicate weeds; and the butterflies also face a changing climate, severe weather events and competition from invasive species.

Monarchs rely heavily on the milkweed as a host plant. Females lay eggs on the leaves of the plant, and the young caterpillars feed on it. The diet makes the caterpillars and the adults toxic and bitter tasting to predators such as birds.

The loss of milkweed, once a common, roadside staple in rural areas, is a big factor in the decline, some scientists say.

There are 15 species of milkweed in Delaware, some of which are uncommon or rare. Although monarchs are found in Delaware and the eastern United States, the main population is found east of the Rockies from Texas into the Midwest.

"Monarchs are in a deadly freefall, and the threats they face are now so large in scale that Endangered Species Act protection is needed sooner rather than later, while there is still time to reverse the severe decline in the heart of their range," said Brower, who has studied the species since 1954 and is a research professor in biology at Sweet Briar College in Virginia.

The petition seeks threatened species status for two populations of monarchs: those that spend winters in Mexico and reproduce during the spring, summer and fall east of the Rocky Mountains and those that spend most of their lives west of the Rockies. The eastern population, according to the petition, has declined 90 percent since 1995. The western population has dropped 50 percent since 1997.

Threatened species status would allow federal officials more latitude to help the populations rebuild but would not be as restrictive as endangered species status.

The listing petition comes in the wake of a June 2014 presidential memorandum to create a federal strategy to protect honeybees and other pollinators, including monarchs.

The petition acknowledges the memorandum as an important step but suggests that the population is threatened in a significant portion of its range.

Federal officials have 90 days to review the petition and determine whether there is substantial information to move forward with the request.

If the petition passes muster, federal officials have a year to complete a status review.

"We need to take immediate action to protect the monarch so that it doesn't become another tragic example of a widespread species being erased because we falsely assumed it was too common to become extinct," said Sarina Jepsen, endangered species director at the Xerces Society.

Contact Molly Murray at (302) 463-3334 or mmurray@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter@MollyMurraytnj.