A recent proposal to protect the iconic orange-and-black monarch butterfly under the U.S. Endangered Species Act could make federal protections available to help the species avoid extinction and rebound.
In a press release, Collin O’Mara, president and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, an NGO, said the ESA listing is a science-based decision and “a national call to action for all Americans to save this majestic species.”
The population of western monarchs (Danaus plexippus), those that live west of the Rocky Mountains, has declined by roughly 95% since the 1980s. They’re particularly vulnerable when the entire population gathers to overwinter in a stretch of forest in California. “The Bureau of Land Management cut down a grove of monarch trees intentionally a couple of months ago to build a parking lot and there was nothing we could do about it,” Tierra Curry, endangered species coordinator with the Center for Biological Diversity, another NGO, told Mongabay by phone. With ESA status, the forest will be protected.
Eastern monarchs, famous for their generational migration from Mexico to Canada and back again each year, are down by roughly 80%. Along their migration route, each of four generations of monarchs must navigate monoculture farms in search of nectar and milkweed, the only food a monarch caterpillar can eat. As wildflower meadows are replaced by monocultures of agricultural crops, the search for food has become increasingly difficult, while exposure to deadly pesticides has caused populations to plummet.
ESA funding will mean continued programs to plant milkweed, though it remains to be seen how the government will address the rampant use of neonicotinoid pesticides, which are mostly banned in Europe and toxic at every stage of monarch development.
Climate change has also been a tremendous challenge, though at present the ESA has little capacity to address that growing threat. In 2024, the combination of a cold summer, abnormally warm autumn and several large hurricanes meant monarchs didn’t reproduce as much as they should and were late to return to Mexico. “And we know that when they get to Mexico late, the population size is smaller,” Curry said.
In Mexico the entire population of eastern monarchs overwinters in the International Monarch Biosphere Reserve, which is protected. However, the forests around the reserve are being converted to avocado plantations to meet demand for the fruit in the U.S. Avocados require a lot of water and are causing drought and wildfires in the region.
“People think monarchs can’t be endangered because they’re in 48 states, that is true. But in the winter, they’re all in one basket and that basket is on fire and being exported in the form of avocados,” Curry said. “Telling vegans to put down their avocados is probably the most unpopular thing that I do,” she added.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has opened a public comment page on the proposed listing.
Banner image of a monarch butterfly by Peter Miller via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
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