The Plight of the Monarchs: Trump Order Weakens Protections

[bronxiteforever]

wttw Public Radio
Associated Press |
August 13, 2019 7:56 pm

GREENBELT, Md. (AP) — ...Monarchs are in trouble, despite efforts by Moore and countless other volunteers and organizations across the United States to nurture the beloved butterfly. The Trump administration’s new order weakening the Endangered Species Act could well make things worse for the monarch, one of more than 1 million species that are struggling around the globe.

...The administration will for the first time reserve the option to estimate and publicize the financial cost of saving a species in advance of any decision on whether to do so. Monarchs compete for habitat with soybean and corn farmers, whose crops are valued in the low tens of billions of dollars annually. For mountain caribou, sage grouse, the Humboldt marten in California’s old-growth redwoods and other creatures, it’s logging, oil and gas development, ranching, and other industry driving struggling species out of their ranges.

Some animals — like a shy mountain caribou species that went extinct from the wild in the lower 48 states last winter, despite protection under the Endangered Species Act — struggle and disappear out of sight. Monarchs can serve as reminders of the others, says Karen Oberhauser, director of the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, and a conservation biologist who has studied monarchs since 1984. That was before a boom in soybeans, corn and herbicide wiped out milkweed in pastures converted to row crops.

In the U.S. West, where monarchs spend the winter rather than migrate to Mexico, their numbers have plummeted from 4.5 million in the 1980s to fewer than 30,000 last winter.Tierra Curry, an Oregon-based senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity conservation advocacy group, said because the monarch was once so common, most people her age — early 40s — believe “there’s no way monarchs can be endangered.” But for her 14-year-old son, it’s already almost a post-monarch world. Despite the more than a dozen milkweed plants that the family plants in their yard, “we haven’t seen one yet,” she said.

https://news.wttw.com/2019/08/13/plight-monarchs-trump-order-weakens-protections

[LuckyLib]

1. An eye--opener of a book on monarchs with a great plot

and wonderfully written is Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver.

[bronxiteforever]

2. Thanks for the recommendation Lucky!

That sounds like a great book. Monarchs were so common in my childhood. I admit a special affection for them.
It occurred to me that Trump probably tortured butterflies as a child.

[Beringia]

3. Here are 2 interesting news items about Monarchs

(I think many or most of the current upcoming plans listed on the USFW news site are going to just be canceled and gone soon).


08/14/2019
Phoenix, Az — In an effort to support and reverse declining monarch butterfly populations, the Arizona Game and Fish Department is seeking volunteers to help plant milkweed this fall and winter at wildlife areas statewide.

https://www.azgfd.com/azgfd-to-install-monarch-butterfly-habitat-at-wildlife-areas/


04/2019
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is announcing the opening of a 60-day public comment period regarding an “enhancement of survival” permit application associated with a proposed Candidate Conservation Agreement with Assurances (CCAA) for the monarch butterfly on energy and transportation lands. The proposed agreement would involve transportation and energy partners across the lower 48 states and would address conservation needs of the species on millions of acres of rights-of-way and associated lands.

Under the monarch rights-of-way CCAA, more than 30 companies in the energy and transportation sectors would provide habitat for the species on energy and transportation lands nationwide. Participants would carry out measures to reduce or remove threats to the species caused by ongoing maintenance and modernization activities on rights-of-way.

https://www.fws.gov/news/ShowNews.cfm?ref=proposed-conservation-agreement-for-monarch-butterfly-&_ID=36391

[bronxiteforever]

4. Thanks Beringia for posting this. I agree the GOP will

Just erase plans to save species.