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Butterflies are in decline across North America, a look at the Western Monarch

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: Butterflies are in decline across North America, a look at the Western Monarch

#51

Post by SOLAR_FIELDS »

groovy2shoes wrote: post #48
nomel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a salesman come to our place saying that a neighbor had spiders, so their whole backyard was treated! I laughed and shut the door.

i had a salesman say he noticed i had a lot of spiders around outside. he asked who i currently use for pest control. i said, "the spiders." he excused himself and left. maybe they don't make great decorations, but the spiders generally stay in their webs and don't bother me. i once watched one defeat a wasp twice its size. i might feel differently if we had any dangerous spiders around here (just black widows, and t…

Indeed I live somewhere that has both black widow and brown recluse and they are about the only two spiders I will actually exterminate. Even the fast scary hunter and wolf spiders get a pass

Re: Butterflies are in decline across North America, a look at the Western Monarch

#52

Post by darth_avocado »

jonah wrote: post #32
sholladay wrote: post #21

Stop planting butterfly bushes! It’s a trap. Instead, plant milkweed. Support their entire lifecycle. The names of these plants ought to be changed.

You should only be planting native species whatever they are for your specific area.

I think majority of places are beyond that point. I’ve found that planting whatever works, even if incrementally, should work. I plant natives, but for natives alone won’t work unless my entire neighborhood does so. So you supplement with non natives that provide something. Milkweed will help with the butterfly larvae but what do you feed the butterflies? Something that’s long blooming and nectar rich. So I let the red valerian that grows like an invasive weed in all conditions, remain blooming in my yard for months at a stretch.

Re: Butterflies are in decline across North America, a look at the Western Monarch

#53

Post by ianburrell »

dqv wrote: post #20
fooqux wrote: post #10

I wish clover lawns would at least make a comeback. Still extremely hard to find seed for it though.

I thought about it, but it turns out the clover that people use for lawns isn't native, and I figured that if I'm doing the lawncare, I'm going to go as native as possible. I don't think our natives here in the US - trifolium reflexum and trifolium carolinianum - work very well as a "lawn" like that. I do have the carolinianum seeds that I want to grow in a container. Both are rare, so I want to help keep them in exi…

Around here, it isn't possible to do native lawn. The grasses are too tall and the low groundcovers can't be walked on. I'm trying to plant wildflower meadow but it will be a couple of feet high.

My idea is that there are two types of lawns. There are the lawn you use, and it is fine to be grass. But there is a lot of lawn that is landscaping and that can be native plants.

Re: Butterflies are in decline across North America, a look at the Western Monarch

#54

Post by 01100011 »

kleton wrote: post #4

Gen X and Millenials don't share Boomers' obsession with green lawns, so it's a race against time, whether Boomers or lightning bugs will go extinct first

They don't yet.. we'll see what happens when the boomers die off and the younger(now older) generations inherit those homes.

Re: Butterflies are in decline across North America, a look at the Western Monarch

#55

Post by picafrost »

All wildlife populations are in a severe decline [1][2]. More should be done about this, but I guess as a species we will have to learn the hard way.

A small way to help is to replace some or all of your lawn with native species. A lawn should be a throw rug, not wall to wall carpet that is functionally a desert. If you won't get fined for doing so.

[1] https://www.worldwildlife.org/news/press-releases/catastroph...

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00063...

Re: Butterflies are in decline across North America, a look at the Western Monarch

#56

Post by sawjet »

gravelc wrote: post #44
tastyfreeze wrote: post #2

It is my hope that humans can ditch their love affair with pesticides. This is just one example of the unintended impact of pesticides. I have also found dying birds in my yard a few days after the neighbor sprayed their house perimeter for ants. No toxicology report but there was no sign of any physical damage.

Pesticides form the backbone of crop protection. Without them, we're looking at at least a 40% reduction in global yield, and much greater uncertainty in food supply chains (the oil shocks show how bad that can be). Pesticides per se are not the problem; synthetic broad-spectrum pesticides with many unintended effects are. They're often toxic to people and ecosystems, and resistance among pests and pathogens is incre…

When you say it's part of our diet, does that mean it's safe to consume?

Re: Butterflies are in decline across North America, a look at the Western Monarch

#57

Post by silisili »

fooqux wrote: post #10

I wish clover lawns would at least make a comeback. Still extremely hard to find seed for it though.

I had a yard of mostly white clover years ago. The neat thing is that animals love it, I'd get 3 or 4 rabbits in my yard each morning - they seem to eat the white flower off the top.

The other nice thing is they don't need cutting nearly as often. I only had to cut the lawn because the stray random grasses and weeds that grew among the clovers.

Re: Butterflies are in decline across North America, a look at the Western Monarch

#59

Post by jonah »

sholladay wrote: post #45
jonah wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should only be planting native species whatever they are for your specific area.

The “butterfly bush” is native to China. Milkweed is native to North America. Milkweed is the only one that can feed the Monarch at all stages of its life, from larva to caterpillar to butterfly. When people plant butterfly bushes, it “tricks” the butterfly (or at least crowds out better options) into laying eggs where the larvae will ultimately die of starvation.

There are many species of milkweed and they're not all the same to the butterflies. Try to grow the ones that are native to your area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asclepias#Ecology

https://www.growmilkweedplants.com/map

Re: Butterflies are in decline across North America, a look at the Western Monarch

#60

Post by aaronbrethorst »

nomel wrote: post #16
tastyfreeze wrote: post #2

It is my hope that humans can ditch their love affair with pesticides. This is just one example of the unintended impact of pesticides. I have also found dying birds in my yard a few days after the neighbor sprayed their house perimeter for ants. No toxicology report but there was no sign of any physical damage.

I had a salesman come to our place saying that a neighbor had spiders, so their whole backyard was treated! I laughed and shut the door.

Was this in the PNW? The idea of getting rid of spiders. Oof, what a joke.
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