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THE XERCES SOCIETY INITIATES NEW PROJECT As spring moves into summer, you may be seeing monarch butterflies pausing to lay eggs on milkweed or to drink nectar from flowers. In the East, these orange-and-black fliers have returned to the United States on their spectacular annual migration. Their journey began last fall in the northern United States and southern Canada. These monarchs flew nearly 3,000 miles to the oyamel fir forests of central Mexico, where they spent the winter. This spring, they returned to Texas and began laying eggs on milkweed, the critical plant that monarchs need in order to reproduce. The eggs hatched and the caterpillars became adults, who traveled northward throughout eastern North America. The offspring of these butterflies will continue moving north, taking two or more generations to reach the northern limits of their migration. In the western United States, monarchs generally do not migrate as far, most no more than a few hundred miles. In the fall, monarchs from California, Oregon, and Washington gather in more than two hundred groves along the California coast, where they cluster for the winter. In the spring, most of these butterflies leave the coast and head north and east, in search of milkweed to start the cycle again. Reports from California and Mexico on the status of overwintering populations of monarchs are concerning. For over a decade citizen scientists have conducted annual counts of overwintering butterflies on the California coast. These observations have revealed nearly a 90 percent population decline across most sites—and some sites have fared significantly worse. For example, in 1997 Natural Bridges State Beach near Santa Cruz had an estimated 120,000 monarchs. By 2009 only 480 butterflies remained. Population declines at overwintering sites in Mexico have also been well documented, and catastrophic storms that hit Mexican overwintering sites this winter highlighted the fragility of the monarch populations. The precise cause of the monarch decline across North America is unknown, but scientists believe that the declines are due to:
The Xerces Society, with support from the Monarch Joint Venture, is initiating a project to protect monarchs. Our goals are to assess the current condition of overwintering sites in California, develop management guidelines for California's overwintering groves, and review the laws regulating the management of these sites. We are also beginning a project to develop sources of locally native milkweed seed for some Southern and Southwest states that can be used to restore habitat for monarchs. HOW TO HELP Wherever you live, you can:
If you live in California, you can:
FOR MORE MONARCH INFORMATION ABOUT THE MONARCH JOINT VENTURE
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OUR MISSION DONATE NOW! JOIN As a member, you will receive two issues of our member magazine Wings each year. Wings is a full color magazine that highlights essays on invertebrate conservation and is a great addition to your home library. For more information on membership please visit the membership page on our website. MEMBER RENEWAL If you are not sure when your membership expires, email suzanne@xerces.org or call the office (503-232-6639). We want to make member renewal as easy as we can for our members, so please let us know if you have any suggestions. PUBLICATIONS PHOTO CREDIT
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The Xerces Society • 4828 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Portland, Oregon 97215 USA • tel 503.232.6639 Copyright (C) 2010 The Xerces Society. All rights reserved.
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