Eastern monarch butterflies at risk of extinction unless numbers increase

From your (good) article, Elektra.

This complex life cycle shows why the key to their survival is multifaceted. Indeed, probably the most important need these insects have is the amount of nectar providing plants they can use to develop the reserves that are needed to make it through their long migration and hibernation period.

It is silly of us to claim a single cause for the problem.
 
Butterflies an' bees endangered...
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Monarch butterfly numbers drop by 27 percent in Mexico
February 9, 2017 — The number of monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico dropped by 27 percent this year, reversing last year's recovery from historically low numbers, according to a study by government and independent experts released Thursday.
The experts say the decline could be due to late winter storms last year that blew down more than 100 acres (40 hectares) of forests where migrating monarch butterflies spend the winter in central Mexico. Millions of monarchs make the 3,400-mile (5,500-kilometer) migration from the United States and Canada each year, and they cluster tightly in the pine and fir forests west of Mexico City. They are counted not by individuals, but by the area they cover. "The reduction in the area of forest they occupied this year is most probably due to the high mortality caused by storms and cold weather last year," said Omar Vidal, the head of the Mexico office of the World Wildlife Fund. "It is a clear reminder for the three countries that they must step up actions to protect breeding, feeding and migratory habitat."

Officials estimate the storms in March killed about 6.2 million butterflies, almost 7.4 percent of the estimated 84 million that wintered in Mexico, said Alejandro Del Mazo, Mexico's commissioner for protected areas. The monarchs were preparing to fly back to the U.S. and Canada at the time the storm hit. While no butterfly lives to make the round trip, a reduction in the number making it out of the wintering grounds often results in a decline among those who return the next year. The combination of rain, cold and high winds from the storms caused the loss of 133 acres (54 hectares) of pine and fir trees in the mountaintop wintering grounds, more than four times the amount lost to illegal logging. It was the biggest storm-related loss since the winter of 2009-10, when unusually heavy rainstorms and mudslides caused the destruction of 262 acres (106 hectares) of trees.

However, the fight against illegal logging continues. Last week, authorities detained a man trying to truck about a dozen huge tree trunks out of the butterfly reserve, using false papers asserting the trees were diseased and were being removed to reduce risk. In fact, investigators found the trees had been healthy. The monarchs depend on finding relatively well-preserved forests, where millions of the orange-and-black butterflies hang in clumps from the boughs. The trees, and the clumping, help protect the butterflies from cold rains and steep drops in temperature. That is why illegal logging in the 33,484-acre (13,551-hectare) nucleus of the reserve is so damaging. Illegal logging in the monarch reserve dropped from almost 49.4 acres (20 hectares) in 2015 to about 29.6 acres (12 hectares) last year. This year's loss has yet to be estimated.

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Trump administration delays listing bumblebee as endangered
February 9, 2017 — The Trump administration on Thursday delayed what would be the first endangered designation for a bee species in the continental U.S., one day before it was to take effect.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service adopted a rule Jan. 11 extending federal protection to the rusty patched bumblebee, one of many types of bees that play a vital role in pollinating crops and wild plants. It once was common across the East Coast and much of the Midwest but its numbers have plummeted since the late 1990s. Federal law requires a 30-day waiting period before most new regulations become effective. The addition of the bumblebee to the endangered species list was scheduled for Friday. The listing would require the service to develop a plan for helping the bee recover and provide more habitat.

But in a Federal Register notice, the service announced a postponement until March 21 in keeping with a Trump administration order issued Jan. 20. It imposed a 60-day freeze on regulations that had been published in the register but hadn't taken effect. The delay, according to the White House, was for the purpose of "reviewing questions of fact, law and policy they raise." With President Donald Trump pledging to cut back on federal regulations, environmentalists said they feared the bumblebee protection might be doomed. "The Trump administration has put the rusty patched bumblebee back on the path to extinction," said Rebecca Riley, senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. "This bee is one of the most critically endangered species in the country and we can save it - but not if the White House stands in the way."

The U.S. Department of Interior, which includes the Fish and Wildlife Service, "is working to review this regulation as expeditiously as possible and expects to issue further guidance on the effective date of the listing shortly," spokeswoman Heather Swift told The Associated Press in an email. She did not say whether a decision had been made about whether the listing would go forward. No other pending endangered-species listings are affected by Trump's freeze, Swift said.

The rusty patched bumblebee has disappeared from about 90 percent of its range in the past 20 years. Scientists say disease, pesticide exposure, habitat loss and climate change are among possible causes. It's among a number of bee species that have suffered steep population declines — along with monarch butterflies, another key pollinator. The American Farm Bureau Federation opposed listing the bumblebee as endangered, saying it could lead to costly limits on land or chemical use and that private partnerships could more effectively preserve bee habitat. "We're excited that the administration is taking a second look," said Ryan Yates, the group's director of congressional relations.

Trump administration delays listing bumblebee as endangered
 
chalk up the demise of the monarch to one more disaster caused by the kings of unintended consequences....liberals...
 
Plant asclepias everywhere you can. Do what you can to oppose the use of Round Up and the Round Up Resistant GM varieties.
 
chalk up the demise of the monarch to one more disaster caused by the kings of unintended consequences....liberals...
Now look, cocksuck, the problem of ethanol corn is the GOP. The states to which this is a major crop are red states.

who thought biofuels using corn would be a good idea you vulgar old liberal whore?
 
Ethanol was a scam from the get go. It sure did enrich a few politically connected assholes though. Old story...as old as the hills....but I wish I had thought of it...scamming left wingers to become amazingly rich, based on a fraudulent science, is my goal in life.
 

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