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Butterflies, symbols of rebirth, disappearing in Rio Grande Valley

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First, the bleak butterfly news: The population of monarchs passing the winter in Mexico appears to have fallen. Now, the good news for Illinois' state insect: The Field Museum is trying to figure out what makes a successful urban monarch garden, and it's not too early to start preparing for this summer.

The area covered by monarchs in Mexico has decreased by more than a quarter compared with last season, according to Mexico's National Commission of Protected Natural Areas and World Wildlife Fund. Because the butterflies mass together on fir trees at their southern roosting grounds, populations are measured in hectares, or acres. This winter's count is only about 5 acres, down from nearly 7 last year.

"When you have those really low numbers, you run the risk of a real catastrophic decline, like we've seen with the monarchs in California," said Erika Hasle, a conservation ecologist at the Field Museum, where a community science project is now heading into its third season. "We're not at that point yet with the monarchs east of the Rockies, but it's a real risk and it's a real concern. And it's an indication that there's something they're not getting."

The monarchs we see in Chicago are part of the eastern population, which accounts for nearly all the monarchs in North America, and includes a supergeneration that flies thousands of miles to Mexico. The western population, which winters in California, was found to number fewer than 2,000 monarchs in a Thanksgiving count - a record low, down from nearly 30,000 the prior year and more than a million years ago.

In the last 25 years, monarchs' populations have plunged by the hundreds of millions, according to the wildlife service's species status assessment report. The black and orange butterflies have to contend with insecticides, loss of milkweed - the plant monarchs lay eggs on and the caterpillars' sole food source - and habitat loss. They're also up against human-induced climate change and weather extremes.

The dwindling population led Field Museum researchers to ask: What makes a successful urban monarch garden? Hasle and GIS specialist Karen Klingerare working to answer that question.

Many stops along the monarchs' multigenerational migratory route, including Illinois, are taking an all-hands-on-deck approach to helping out the butterfly, looking for more places where milkweed might grow. What happens in the Chicago area can be crucial to the success of the generation that will make the long journey back to Mexico.

"How can a small piece of land do as much as possible for protecting this butterfly?" Hasle said. "Because we think to some extent, cities are providing an important refuge for a lot of insects."

But private residential spaces can be hard to track, so community science allows for access. The Field Museum project involves city dwellers reporting on spaces that researchers can't walk into every day, like backyards, or sending dispatches from their decks. The data contributes to a national monitoring project, which helps fill out the bigger picture.

"We're really finding habitat that we would not have known existed if people hadn't invited us into their yards and their balconies," Hasle said.

Although the Field Museum's project is still fairly new, there are already some findings after a pilot and pandemic season. Unlike some other field work derailed by the coronavirus, the monarch project worked well with more people staying home to watch over their gardens.

In the Chicago area, there's not a one-size-fits-all monarch garden, and conservation efforts are happening in pockets across the city. Participants sent in weekly reports, including the makeup of their garden, and development of eggs and caterpillars.

The most prevalent kind of milkweed planted among project participants was common milkweed, and it was associated with the most eggs. And while participants planted close to the same amount of swamp and butterfly milkweed, they reported about four times as many eggs on swamp milkweed.

The more successful gardens had more milkweed and blooming plants, multiple milkweed species, and tended to be larger plots. But there were small victories.

Klinger said one participant with a single plant watched eggs transform all the way to a chrysalis. So, she said, "You just need one plant."

Another finding last year was that the number of caterpillars dropped, even though the number of participants in the study more than doubled.

Chicago saw a hot, dry summer - its warmest on record - and Klinger said that may have affected the health of the milkweed plants. But reports also came in of predators eating caterpillars.

"Overall, the sense of why the population is declining is that it's not just one thing," Hasle said. "Insects probably are one of the canaries in the coal mine."

The reports out of Mexico noted this season's eastern population drop followed an increase in forest degradation, which was 4 times what it was the prior year - primarily from illegal logging, as well as trees hit by wind and drought. But they also said spring and summer weather conditions were tough for milkweed blossoms and egg development in the southern U.S., which limited reproduction.

Scientists continue to research the connection between climate change and butterflies. A study published last week in Science on western butterfly declines, which drew on community science data, found disappearances may be driven largely by rising fall temperatures.

For monarchs, northern habitat may be particularly important this season, depending on what conditions the butterflies find in Texas after this winter's extreme cold and storms.

But now is the perfect time to start planning to plant some milkweed, Hasle and Klinger said. They recommend checking out native plant sales from sites like the Illinois Native Plant Society and preordering; milkweed can be in high demand come June.

There aren't many don'ts for starting up a milkweed patch, Hasle said, but one plant to avoid is tropical milkweed, a nonnative plant that flowers late in the season. The best garden is one you can sustain, Hasle said. And it can make for a fun family project.

"The best thing to do is what you can do," Hasle said. "One milkweed plant in a pot on your balcony is doing something."

Last year the project reached 10 counties, including locations in Indiana. Sign-up for participants is open, and trainings will start in spring, including some in Spanish, as part of an effort to make the project more bilingual. Milkweed giveaways for participants are also planned.

This summer, the Field Museum will also collaborate with the Chicago Botanic Garden, which has its own community science project involving monarchs and milkweed.

"We place equal emphasis on the community and the science," Klinger said. "We've heard a lot of feedback from people who really enjoy just being outside and learning about what was happening in their yards and talking to their neighbors about what they were seeing and learning."

Judith Rice, a retired teacher who lives in Skokie, participated in the project in its first two seasons, while growing her garden with more milkweed and more pollinator plants. Now she has so much common milkweed, she gives it away.

"I can remember the first year looking for them and it's like, oh my gosh, look, there's a little caterpillar," Rice said. "Or, there's an egg!"

Last summer, the garden relieved some of the stress of the pandemic.

"Once you start counting the eggs and you start seeing caterpillars, it gets more and more fascinating and more and more motivating," Rice said. "I'm looking forward to doing it again this year. It gives you something to look forward to during the dreary winter in Chicago."

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Monarch butterfly population down so it's not too early to plan your urban monarch garden, local researchers say

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First, the bleak butterfly news: The population of monarchs passing the winter in Mexico appears to have fallen. Now, the good news for Illinois' state insect: The Field Museum is trying to figure out what makes a successful urban monarch garden, and it's not too early to start preparing for this summer.

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MISSION, Texas - The Monarch butterflies are en route to the Valley and the National Butterfly Center is waiting for their arrival. Due to the cold front only one or two have been spotted this fall. But visitors will soon be able to see them up close.

Luciano Guerra, National Butterfly Center, "They're on their way. They have not reached us yet. It's possible that after this cold front that's coming in we might see the first wave of monarchs coming in. But they don't usually arrive until till after Dia de Los Muertos around November 1st."

There will be a Texas Butterfly Festival at the National Butterfly Center starting November 2nd. Just in time to see some of the Monarch butterflies.

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Monarch butterflies on the way to the Rio Grande Valley

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MISSION, Texas - The Monarch butterflies are en route to the Valley and the National Butterfly Center is waiting for their arrival. Due to the cold front only one or two have been spotted this fall. But visitors will soon be able to see them up close.

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The population of monarch butterflies that spend the winter in Mexico has jumped more than 144 percent over last year, Mexican officials announced this week.

The butterflies occupied about 15 acres of the high-altitude Mexican forests this year, up from about six acres in early 2018. Such a large population has not been observed since 2006. In 2014, the worst year for monarchs, the population occupied only about 1.5 acres.

Representatives of the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) hailed the population increase at a Mexico City press conference on Wednesday. They attributed the boom to decreased logging in Mexico and trilateral habitat and conservation efforts.

The news was welcome in San Antonio, the nation's first Monarch Butterfly Champion City. San Antonio sits in the heart of the Texas Funnel, the migratory pathway through which all migrating monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains must pass on their multi-generation migration from Mexico to Canada and back each year.

"This is such a great endorsement of our conservation efforts," said Cathy Downs, Texas and South Central region conservation specialist with Monarch Watch, a citizen science butterfly tagging program based at the University of Kansas at Lawrence. "We just have to keep it up so we don't lose momentum."

Downs, who lives in Comfort, expects a healthy spring migration and is fortifying her pollinator garden with Asclepias asperula, a native milkweed commonly known as Antelope Horns.

Monarchs lay their eggs only on milkweed plants, which include anything in the Asclepias family. Over the course of a month, the eggs hatch into caterpillars, morph through their stages and become a butterfly. The butterfly moves north in the spring and subsequent generations repeat the cycle on emerging milkweeds. In the fall, monarchs cease reproductive activities, conserving their energies for the long trip south to Mexico, where they spend the winter.

"This good news gives us hope that our combined conservation efforts and education events are making an impact," said Laurie Brown, volunteer coordinator for the Alamo Area Monarch Collaborative, a local coalition of monarch butterfly conservationists and education manager at the San Antonio Zoo.

Related: San Antonio's Wet, Cold Fall Triggers Disjointed, Late Monarch Butterfly Migration

The announcement from Mexico stood in sharp contrast to a report out of California earlier this year. The western monarch butterfly population, which moves up and down the California coast, plummeted 86 percent, according to the most recent census.

Mexican officials noted that 14 monarch colonies had been identified this year: eight colonies of about 12 acres within the protected Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve and six of about 2.6 acres outside the preserve. For the first time, a colony was registered in the Ojo de Agua community, located in Nevado de Toluca, about 65 miles southeast of the preserves.

Counting monarch butterflies is an inexact science at best, and scientists and others have called for improving the way the migrating population is calculated. Currently, technicians and scientists walk the forest and map the trees occupied by monarchs at each roost. They measure the perimeter of each colony, then calculate the number of hectares occupied. They then multiply the number of hectares by a factor of 20 million.

Using that formula, which has vacillated between 10 million and 50 million over the years, the 2018-2019 population represents an estimated 121 million butterflies. The 2017 -2018 season was estimated at about 50 million using the same formula.

Jorge Rickards, managing director of WWF Mexico, attributed the increase to pollinator-friendly initiatives throughout the three-nation migratory path, favorable conditions in Texas, and generally favorable climate throughout the breeding zone.

Andrew Rhodes, director of Mexico's National Commission of Natural Protected Areas, pointed out that butterfly populations fluctuate wildly and cautioned that "it's important to not lower our guard in addressing threats such as climate change, land use, and changes and forest degradation."

Monarch Watch Founder and Director Chip Taylor told National Public Radio this week that the migration effectively "dodged a bullet" this year, with excellent weather and habitat conditions that increased the availability of milkweed. Plenty of nectar also was available. Monarchs require the nectar of late-blooming flowers to fuel their flight throughout the season, especially in the fall when they head to Mexico.

Threats still loom, however. Warmer temperatures can cause problems for monarch butterfly reproduction. When it's warmer, the butterflies wander further north too early and the milkweeds are not out of the ground yet. As a result, the population suffers.

Meanwhile, a catastrophic climate change event like the freak that occurred at the roosting sites in Mexico, could wipe out all progress. An unusual sleet storm moved through the monarch sanctuaries that spring, just as the monarchs were beginning to make their way north. At least freeze of February 2017 1.5 million butterflies perished.

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Migrating Monarch Butterfly Population Climbs to Highest Level in 12 Years

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The population of monarch butterflies that spend the winter in Mexico has jumped more than 144 percent over last year, Mexican officials announced this week. The butterflies occupied about 15 acres of the high-altitude Mexican forests this year, up from about six acres in early 2018.

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We kindly ask you to please...
* Wear your face covering in City of McAllen buildings
* Wash and sanitize your hands frequently
* Practice social distancing
* Use preventive measures like not touching your face
* Stay home if you feel sick and visit another day
Our staff works hard to protect you...
* Undergoes a health screen per shift
* Has protective equipment (counter shields, masks & more)
* Frequently sanitizes the buildings
* Makes hand sanitizer visible and available
* Displays best health practice signage as a reminder to all
* Follows the state phased guidelines for individuals and public gatherings

Mayor's Monarch Pledge

Mayor's Monarch Pledge:

Become a part of McAllen's Community Wildlife Habitat

WHAT?

The City of McAllen is participating in the Mayor's Monarch Pledge, which is a national initiative from the National Wildlife Federation (NFW). The purpose of the pledge is to commit to create habitat and educate citizens about how they can make a difference at home. The City of McAllen wishes to invite and encourage the community at large, including homeowners, schools, businesses, places of worship, and others to plant and certify Monarch butterfly gardens in order to help this iconic species.

WHY?

Monarch butterfly numbers have declined 90% over the last 20 years across North America. This is because of the overuse of pesticides and herbicides, loss of habitat, and disease. The Lower Rio Grande Valley is in the pathway of the annual Monarch's migration to overwinter in Mexico and to go back to the north in the spring. Since 95% of natural habitat in the Valley has been altered, degraded, or destroyed due to a variety of land use practices, it is extremely important to provide Monarch habitats within urban areas to help them continue their journey, have successive generation, and ultimately ensure their survival.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

By planting a butterfly garden and certifying it officially as a Wildlife Habitat with the NWF. Plant it and they will come! We designed a butterfly garden in front of the historic mansion and there are butterflies everywhere including beautiful Monarchs. We also planted a garden by the Ruby Pond, and it's visited continuously by fluttering butterflies. Start yours today!

HOW DO I CERTIFY MY GARDEN AS A WILDLIFE HABITAT?

Anyone with a bit of space can make a garden that attracts butterfly, birds, and other wildlife. Or your garden may already bring in butterflies, birds, and other wildlife. To become part of the City of McAllen's Community Wildlife Habitat, which is part of McAllen's Mayor's Monarch Pledge, you certify your garden (which is a habitat) with the NFW, by filling out this form and mailing it, or by doing so online directly. It costs $20 to certify a garden. School certifications are free. When you certify, you show that you care!

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We kindly ask you to please... * Wear your face covering in City of McAllen buildings * Wash and sanitize your hands frequently * Practice social distancing * Use preventive measures like not touching your face * Stay home if you feel sick and visit another day Our staff works hard to protect you...

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If there's something that the Moreno family agrees on, it's that monarch butterflies changed their lives. And not just their own but the lives of most in Macheros, Mexico. The agricultural village of 400 people-whose name translates to "stables" in Spanish, because of the 100 horses that also make their home here-sits at the entrance to Cerro Pelón, one of four sanctuaries in Mexico's Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, established by the federal government in 1986.

It started when Melquiades Moreno de Jesus secured a job as a forest ranger, or guardabosque, in 1982. Six years earlier, National Geographic had run a feature on monarch migration, bringing international attention to the butterflies' overwintering sites in the mountainous oyamel fir forests some 80 miles west of Mexico City-though locals had discovered the colonies long before outsiders descended on the area. Soon after that publication, the State of Mexico's Commission of Natural Parks and Wildlife ( Comisión Estatal de Parques Naturales y de la Fauna, or CEPANAF) established the local forest ranger positions, employing men from Macheros to patrol the part of the sanctuary that's in the state of Mexico. (Part of the butterfly reserve also lies in the state of Michoacán.) CEPANAF hired Melquiades several years later and he stayed on, monitoring the butterflies and deterring illegal loggers, for more than three decades.

"When my dad got the job as a forest ranger, it changed our lives," says Joel Moreno Rojas, the fourth-born of Melquiades's 10 children. His father's steady income brought the family out of poverty and afforded the children the chance to go to school. It also instilled a sense of local pride and inspired his family's commitment to caring for the natural wonder at their doorstep.

Among the Moreno siblings, three have continued their father's legacy: Joel, Anayeli, and sixth-born Patricio ("Pato"). Pato took over Melquiades's forest ranger position after his dad's retirement in 2014. When the monarchs are roosting in Cerro Pelón, roughly from November to March, he spends many days near the overwintering colonies, monitoring them and asking visitors not to disturb the impressive clusters. The butterflies, which have migrated thousands of miles from the eastern part of the United States, are drawn to the oyamel canopy-which provides insulation and keeps out the elements-for their winter rest. "I love it," says the father of two. "It's the most marvellous thing that could have happened in my life to have a job like this."

Being among hundreds of thousands of butterflies sparks such an intense emotional reaction that the Moreno siblings say it is impossible to name. When they do find the words, they describe experiencing the monarchs as powerful, beautiful, and emotional. Joel has seen visitors drop to their knees and pray or break out in tears when they first see the butterflies, who some locals believe are the souls of their ancestors, since the migrating monarchs arrive in Macheros right around the first of November, el Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead.

"As Mexicans, we should all be proud of the butterflies," Pato continues. "I'd like everyone to understand the value of the forest, because it helps us and it helps the butterflies."

Like his father did, Pato also works to deter illegal loggers, many of them jobless and poverty-stricken, who may chop down a single tree at a time to sell for commercial purposes, like construction. It's not easy to make ends meet in Macheros: Most people here earn less than 200 MXN, or $9, a day by selling resin or tortillas, growing avocados or corn, driving taxis, weaving baskets, herding sheep, or cutting trees. The logging poses a grave threat to the migrating monarchs, which rely on an intact forest canopy to make it through the winter and are facing an extinction crisis due to a multitude of threats. Two decades ago, their population numbered almost one billion. But as use of the toxic weed killer glyphosate began to skyrocket in the United States, that number has dropped an alarming 80 percent. Habitat loss on both sides of the border only makes matters worse.

For Joel, these challenges facing both the butterflies and his family's hometown were an opportunity. Macheros is unique, he notes, in that the village-one of Mexico's thousands of ejidos, or community-owned lands-is the sole permitted access point to the Cerro Pelón sanctuary. Such a status offered an opportunity to participate in the country's tourism economy. In 2012, he and his wife, Ellen Sharp, an American cultural anthropologist whom he'd met the previous year, began welcoming guests to JM Butterfly B&B. It was the first business of its kind in Macheros, offering lodging, food (prepared by Joel's mother, Rosa, who runs the village restaurant), and tours (run and assisted by locals). Their international clientele is eager to experience the most natural and pristine-and the least touristy-of Mexico's four monarch butterfly sanctuaries.

In the winter of 2019-2020, the business drew more than 1,000 visitors and directly paid about 20 community members, though dozens more benefitted. More than 80 people in Macheros, for example, were on a rotating list to rent their horses to tourists. Others sold souvenirs, drove taxis, did housekeeping, or worked at the restaurant. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the region, it ground this activity to a halt. Now, with Cerro Pelón closed to visitors, there has been an uptick in illegal logging. Joel and Ellen hope that butterfly enthusiasts will consider offering support in the meantime by virtually adopting a monarch colony until in-person business can safely resume.

Thankfully, some of the jobs the couple has been able to create in the community fall outside the tourism industry. In 2017, they started a nonprofit, Butterflies and Their People, through which they've been able to hire six full-time forest guardians (not to be confused with the CEPANAF-employed forest rangers like Pato). Three are residents of Macheros; three come from other Cerro Pelón-adjacent communities.

"It makes me feel good to make a difference for these families," says Joel, who'd spent 11 years in the United States before returning to his community. "They don't have to go to the forest to cut a tree. Instead, they are protecting the trees. And it's nice to see them happy when they see the butterflies."

Still, much more could be done to ensure the local community benefits equitably from monarch and forest conservation, Ellen says. For example, the owners of various tree nurseries that are dedicated to the government's reforestation efforts pay locals for just one day a year of planting. A shift toward local ownership and operation would keep profits in Macheros.

And the larger conservation organizations, which have solid funding and some of the few government-issued permits to officially perform research and collect data, could spend more time in Cerro Pelón uncovering important information about the monarchs' status that is not currently being addressed. For example, Ellen says, they could track temperatures in the colony, chart nectar sources and how the butterflies use them, and better monitor mortality rates and logging activities. Critically, she sees community development and an increased respect for and deference to local knowledge and expertise as essential to making larger reforms.

"We have a system of conservation that replicates deeper inequalities and therefore fails to protect the butterfly forest," she says. "What I really want is environmental justice for the people whose land was taken to form the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve."

The couple's mission is also shared by Anayeli Moreno, one of Melquiades's five daughters, who works full-time for the family business. Ana, as she is also called, likes to say she first experienced the butterflies when she was in the womb because her pregnant mother would make the hour-long trip up the mountain on horseback to see them. At 10 years old, she remembers going with her mother to sell quesadillas to the butterfly tourists as they arrived by the busload. Until then, she had wanted to be a doctor. "But I changed my mind. I told my mom I wanted to study tourism-and I'm glad for that," she says. "Someone from this place, from this village, has to show the rest of the world what we have here."

Encouraged by her mother, Ana enrolled at the nearby Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México, becoming one of the village's first college graduates. "We live in a very macho place, and usually women marry and have to stay home," she says. "My mom felt that we should be different. She said, 'You have to study. It's the only way we can change this place.' "

Ana has blazed another trail by becoming Cerro Pelón's first-and only-female butterfly guide. "You can see women in other sanctuaries, but not here-only men can go up to the mountain," she says, explaining that the ejido had long excluded women from participating in butterfly tourism. "But now it seems like more girls are going to the university. And they want to be guides too."

As a guide for JM Butterfly B&B, Ana travels on horseback up the steep and narrow trails, climbing about 2,300 feet from the base of the mountain to reach the colonies. She works six days a week and jokes that she only takes one day off to do laundry. "It's really hard to explain the feelings you have when you see the butterflies," she says. "It's like you're in love."

Sylvia Fallon, a scientist who directs NRDC's wildlife work, shares the Moreno family's reverence for the butterflies. In fact, a tattoo of a monarch, wings open wide, sits between her shoulder blades-a permanent reminder of the butterfly's vibrancy, power, and freedom. "Words cannot describe the sensation of walking through a forest that is alive with the quiet fluttering of hundreds of thousands of monarch butterflies," says Fallon, who visited the reserve in 2019. "Pictures can't adequately capture it either. Knowing that these butterflies came from all across the United States, and even Canada, to congregate in these same forests every year defies logic. It inspires a profound sense of wonder in our natural world."

She notes that while the sanctuaries in Mexico could stand to be better protected, it is clear that "the agricultural policies in the United States are what's actually driving the decline of the monarch population." In March 2020, NRDC and Pesticide Action Network sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over its approval of glyphosate, which is known to kill milkweed, monarch caterpillars' only source of food. And in December 2020, in response to a six-year-old petition filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, Xerces Society, and the Center for Food Safety, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service finally acknowledged the monarch's plight and announced that the species warranted protection under the Endangered Species Act. Unfortunately, the protections have been put off until 2024, but advocates hope the Biden administration will speed the process along.

Those protections would be a lifeline for the Moreno family's hometown too-though Joel is quick to point out that the cause of saving nature's petite but mighty marathoners is so much bigger. It's critical that we pay attention and do something, he says. "Not for me. But for the butterflies, for the forest, for the people."

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For a Family in Mexico, a Mission to Protect Monarchs

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If there's something that the Moreno family agrees on, it's that monarch butterflies changed their lives. And not just their own but the lives of most in Macheros, Mexico.