By Karen Cohen
Fly Away
Do you know what West Virginia’s state butterfly is? It’s the monarch butterfly, and it was designated to be our state butterfly in 1995. Monarchs are easily identified by their brilliant orange wings laced in black. They used to be pretty common to see everywhere since there were billions of them. But now in eastern North America, the population of monarchs has dropped nearly 90%. That decline has put them on the Endangered Species Act protection waiting list. This year in December, the final determination will be made whether they get listed as an endangered species or not.
Last year in Lewisburg I saw two monarchs right in town, flitting about hanging flower baskets on our main street of shops and restaurants. They hung around long enough for me to get a few photos of them in action. I was elated to see them since the year before I had noticed a marked decline in my woodlined fields. Please note that there are just an estimated 200,000-300,000 of them left alive.
What has caused their decline? Disappearing habitat is a main factor. Logging, clearing fields, and development removes valuable foraging settings for all butterflies. They survive on flowering plants/weeds that nourish them with nectar. Remove all nectar producing plants and there go the butterflies too. With a short life span, they won’t be able to breed if they cannot find food.
So what can you do to help? Should you even bother? Yes, please step up to the plate, no pun intended. Monarchs are important pollinators and absolutely critical to our food web. Someday we may recognize the supreme importance of our pollinating insects when and if they disappear all together. Bees also are disappearing. Let’s remember that flowers aren’t the only species pollinated by flying insects. Fruits and vegetables are too.
If we no longer have our friends, the butterflies, bees and birds to pollinate, crops such as blueberries, cherries, tomatoes, apples, pumpkins, just to name a few, can only continue with hand pollination, human or robotic hands. Who in their right mind would attempt to pollinate a field of anything, one flower at a time; it is not cost effective. The plain and simple fact is the human race along with other terrestrials would not survive because 80% of flowers in the world reproduce only by being pollinated.
Flowers are where the pollen dust lays. When the pollen is lifted out of a flower by a visitor’s wings or legs, it gets taken to a neighboring plant where that flower’s stigma receives pollen and hence fertilization occurs. That flower then produces a fruit or vegetable. Simply genius, isn’t it? We can learn to appreciate our pollinators and help them along before it is too late.
How? Monarchs feed on native milkweed. Rather than spraying that plant with biocides which kill it, let it grow freely. Native milkweed will come back on its own from its dropped seeds, year after year without any help from humans. You can purchase milkweed seeds from various seed companies and get a crop of it growing right in your yard. There are tons of different kinds of milkweed.
Do not plant or buy tropical ornamental milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, or Mexican butterfly weed because it is not beneficial and can harm butterflies. Its life cycle is much longer than native milkweeds and that fools butterflies into sticking around longer, sipping nectar, laying eggs, and then the cold temps hit and may kill them. Migration to warmer climates is essential for butterflies to mate and lay eggs. For our region, swamp milkweed, whorled milkweed, poke milkweed and butterfly weed grow best. Monarchs drink the nectar of these plants and lay their eggs on the leaves. So put down that insecticide, too! Don’t kill the caterpillars that munch on leaves. Pesticides are poisoning the habitats for pollinators of all kinds and that causes great disturbance in the natural food chain. Insects dine on leaves and plants, birds, fish, toads and frogs eat bugs, animals eat these species, and we eat animals. Even if we skip eating the animals, we still rely on plant sources directly to nourish ourselves. It is a complete cycle where not one player can be eliminated without dire consequences.
Lots of folks prefer to look away from doom and gloom scenarios. The plight of the monarch is not one to take lightly. Their beauty reigns supreme. Their role in our lives is more important than the clerk in the grocery store. Let’s give the monarchs their due respect, help them to survive and pollinate, and allow the food production lines naturally chugging along to keep our planet fed.