Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was
scheduled to determine whether the monarch butterfly warranted listing as an
endangered species.
That didn’t happen, not because the North American
monarch population suddenly improved dramatically, but because the deadline for
this important decision was extended for about 18 months, to December 15, 2020.
With the additional time, biologists from the Fish and Wildlife Service and
other organizations will continue to collect information on the monarch’s status.
A lot of people care about this, because monarchs are
perhaps the most recognized of all butterfly species. But as familiar as
monarchs are, they are much less common than they were at one time.
Two years ago, North Dakota Outdoors, the state Game and
Fish Department’s magazine, featured a story on the monarch’s status in the
state, which indicated the North American monarch population, based on surveys
of wintering grounds in Mexico, was estimated at 1 billion in 1996. The eventually
dwindled to estimated 35 million, but has improved somewhat in recent years.
Sandra Johnson, Game and Fish Department conservation
biologist, said that while there are a number of potential reasons for the
decline in monarch numbers, such as disease and predation, loss of milkweed
habitat is near the top of the list. “Without milkweed, there are no more
monarchs,” Johnson said at the time.
North Dakota has several species of milkweed, all of
which are native. The two that are most familiar are common milkweed and showy
milkweed.
After mating, the female monarch lays eggs on milkweed
plants, typically one egg per plant. Once hatched, monarch larvae feed
exclusively on the plant.
Greg Link, Game and Fish Department conservation and
communications division chief, said that state and federal agencies and
conservation organizations were working together to determine the monarch’s
specific habitat requirements. “State and federal partners are banding together
and pooling resources to develop and implement monitoring efforts to more
accurately assess and determine how monarch population and distribution trends
are doing,” Link said. “Hopefully, these efforts bear fruit in turning monarch
population trends in an upward direction, and thereby prevent listing.”
North Dakota and other states are charged with
development of monarch management plans and strategies to further conservation
of monarch butterflies and other pollinators.
The North Dakota Monarch and Native Pollinator
Strategy outlines actions to increase the monarch population in its summer
range and further pollinator conservation in the state.
Wildlife managers understand that listing a species as
federally threatened or endangered may restrict certain actions on private and
public lands. The cost of protection or restoration of a listed species is
often far greater than preventing or stemming the decline in the first place.
“No one wants the monarch butterfly on the endangered species
list because of the restrictions that come with managing public and private land,”
Johnson said. “And no one wants it going extinct in 20 years.”
