Monarch butterfly populations in U.S. west are down an order of magnitude
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Re: Monarch butterfly populations in U.S. west are down an order of magnitude
#2Down an order of magnitude... from last year!
> Surveyors at 97 sites found only 20,456 monarchs compared to 148,000 at the same sites last year, an 86% decline.
I have no words..
Re: Monarch butterfly populations in U.S. west are down an order of magnitude
#3Any news about the pesticides killing off bees and butterflies? Have any been banned yet?
Re: Monarch butterfly populations in U.S. west are down an order of magnitude
#4I planted milkweed in my front yard. These plants don't come cheap, between 10-20$ at the nursery for a young plant. I never was able to grow them from seed. Anyways, the plants did attract a few monarchs late summer/early fall. I counted two. I planted nine total.
I got a code violation warning last month for not mowing my front yard and having overgrown "landscape weeds".
Re: Monarch butterfly populations in U.S. west are down an order of magnitude
#5"Its population has fallen by 97% since the 1980s, and is at just 99.5% of its original abundance."
I assume they mean 0.5%?
Re: Monarch butterfly populations in U.S. west are down an order of magnitude
#6I planted milkweed in my front yard. These plants don't come cheap, between 10-20$ at the nursery for a young plant. I never was able to grow them from seed. Anyways, the plants did attract a few monarchs late summer/early fall. I counted two. I planted nine total. I got a code violation warning last month for not mowing my front yard and having overgrown "landscape weeds".
If you get cited you can appeal based on the milkweed.
Re: Monarch butterfly populations in U.S. west are down an order of magnitude
#7This seems like part of the insect apocalypse story, and bee colony collapse disorder. All probably caused by overuse of insecticides.
Note that if we don't find a way to correct this, it can be catastrophic on a timescale that makes the most alarmist climate change predictions seem like nothing. There must be some percentage of normal insect population density below which population of frogs and birds and what not will fall even farther, with knock-on impact elsewhere.
One wonders how much of a boy-who-cried-wolf effect we might be seeing. Alarmism gets tiresome, so it's important to ring the alarm about the most urgent problems first. The insect apocalypse -if it is real, which I've a feeling it very much is- is probably a problem we can ameliorate quickly once we decide to, and it will worsen quickly if we don't. But climate change gets all the attention and sucks the oxygen out of the room.
Re: Monarch butterfly populations in U.S. west are down an order of magnitude
#8I planted milkweed in my front yard. These plants don't come cheap, between 10-20$ at the nursery for a young plant. I never was able to grow them from seed. Anyways, the plants did attract a few monarchs late summer/early fall. I counted two. I planted nine total. I got a code violation warning last month for not mowing my front yard and having overgrown "landscape weeds".
I planted milkweed seed about 3 years ago. Had my first plant that sprouted and survived in the spot I planted just this past summer. Give it some time, you never know. Some seeds have to go through a freeze/thaw cycle or two to sprout properly.
Re: Monarch butterfly populations in U.S. west are down an order of magnitude
#9If the pesticides were banned, how fast would their population be replenished? Or do they persist, akin to CFCs?
Re: Monarch butterfly populations in U.S. west are down an order of magnitude
#10I planted milkweed in my front yard. These plants don't come cheap, between 10-20$ at the nursery for a young plant. I never was able to grow them from seed. Anyways, the plants did attract a few monarchs late summer/early fall. I counted two. I planted nine total. I got a code violation warning last month for not mowing my front yard and having overgrown "landscape weeds".
I planted milkweed seed about 3 years ago. Had my first plant that sprouted and survived in the spot I planted just this past summer. Give it some time, you never know. Some seeds have to go through a freeze/thaw cycle or two to sprout properly.
The good news is that if you can get milkweed to grow, you'll never be able to kill it. I believe it's capable of propagating by runners, so it might not be vital for the seeds to be viable in your climate.