Saving The Monarch

Monarch populations have dropped by more than 80 percent since the mid-1990's. The monarch faces multiple threats, including habitat loss due to development and urbanization, loss of overwintering habitat in Mexico, disease, insecticide use for agriculture and mosquito and grasshopper control, and global climate change. The widespread use of herbicides in modern agriculture, particularly those used in conjunction with genetically engineered crops, has also been widely implicated as a major factor in the population decline by reducing milkweed habitat and nectar resources on an enormous scale throughout the migration route.

Map courtesy of Monarch Watch (http://www.flightofthebutterflies.com/epic-migrations/)

As seen in the map above, one of their fall migratory routes travels the American Prairie Corridor (bright blue line), originating in Canada and flowing south into Mexico. American Prairie Corridor is committed to developing a 3-mile-wide corridor of prairie from the Mexican border in Texas to the Canadian Border in North Dakota, opening up a flyway for the Monarchs and all pollinators, free of pesticides and rich in native prairie habitat. Land acquisition and restoration and/or reconstruction of native prairie habitat within the Corridor can not only halt, but reverse, the decline of prairie bird, pollinator, grass, and forb species and create a viable nesting, breeding, and feeding habitat corridor for migratory species for generations to come.

TMR 6/18/18

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