The monarch butterfly, majestic and beloved, has been listed as endangered.
The listing from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature was expected yet jarring, a reflection of all that has been lost. Yet the formal designation is an opportunity to protect monarchs and a reminder of how humans impact the planet at a time of intense warming.
The listing was hardly surprising given the rate of decline among the monarch population over the past decade. That rate ranges from 22% to 72% depending on the estimate, and it is unsustainable. Monarchs, which journey thousands of miles, spanning generations, fly from Mexico in the winter to Canada in the summer before journeying south again. They are frequent flyers in New York, Pennsylvania and throughout North America.
Threats to them are well-known and understood: habitat loss in Mexico, herbicides and pesticides, climate change. All of these forces have fueled population decline, or as the Associated Press so aptly described it, the monarch butterfly “fluttered one step closer to extinction.”
The United States should formally list the monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act.
The butterfly’s story is not over yet, and every action big and small can make a difference. Here in New York and elsewhere, we can plant milkweed to feed caterpillars and foster new generations of monarchs. We can push for habitat preservation and for agriculture to move away from herbicides and pesticides. We can understand that climate change, left unmitigated, poses a threat to the natural world in ways big and small.
— Tribune News Service
