Every Little Bit Helps

There has been a big push form organizations like Monarch Watch and others to help bring back the Monarch butterfly from declining numbers. To give an idea as to the severity of population loss in the eastern Monarchs that over winter in Mexico, consider these numbers. In the winter of 1996-1997 the over wintering butterflies covered 20.97 hectares or 51.8 acres while in the winter of 2013-2014 they only covered .67 hectares or 1.65 acres at the over winter sites in the Mexican mountains. This means there is about a 96 percent decline in the eastern Monarch population. While there has been up tics in the annual numbers, the overall trend has been a sharp and significant downward slide as can be seen in the graph from monarchwacth.org. There are several factors contributing to this catastrophic decline. Habitat loss, spring weather during migration, winter weather at the over wintering sites, pesticide usage, excessive and ill timed roadside mowing and changes in agricultural practices all have played a major role in the majestic Monarch’s decline.

I show the above information not to discourage you but to hopefully inspire you to help. I did not see Monarch butterflies around the Hudsonville area as early as usual this spring and summer, but they did come and as we are now a couple of generations in for the summer we are starting to see more of them. We may not be seeing the numbers we saw several years ago but they are here and you can help as every little bit of native milkweeds left standing has the potential of hosting Monarch larvae. There are native species of milkweeds t hat are good for and in my opinion, desirable for the garden that will supply egg laying sites and food for developing Monarch larvae. As an example, I left a small patch of Common Milkweed in my vegetable garden which has produced several eggs and larvae this summer. As I wrote about in a previous entry, STAY AWAY from the Tropical Milkweed Asclepias curassavica (see this earlier entry from January 2015 for more information).

I’d like to share a recent experience to show a good example of what a little bit can do. My uncle who is a farmer in southwestern Michigan called and asked if I would come to look at some milkweed he had been working around as he didn’t want to take it out any larvae and contribute to the problem. When I arrived to the field there were 10 to 12 small patches of Common Milkweed totaling between 300 and 500 or so plants (the dark patches in front of the corn are milkweed). It didn’t take long to find the first couple of small larvae. When I was done I had found 25 eggs, some of which had just been deposited by the female flying around the patches ahead of me and at least 35 larvae. The larvae ranged from day old first instar to larger third and fourth instars.  I was very encouraged that if more farmers would leave milkweeds at the edges of fields we would significantly add to the numbers heading back to Mexico for the winter and with these higher numbers, hopefully more returning in the spring. But for the spring Monarchs to make a good comeback the farmers in the Midwest need to make changes as well to help.

If we would change some of these agricultural practices, stop mowing the milkweed patches along the roads just as Monarchs are laying eggs and all of us plant a few milkweeds in our yards or gardens we could make a difference. If a million people do a little it turns into a lot!