Dec. 23—FARGO — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is seeking protection for a beloved species and is asking the public to play a role in its recovery.
The federal agency wants the monarch butterfly listed as “threatened” under the Endangered Species Act, with specific protections and flexibility to encourage conservation, it recently announced.
A public comment period on the proposal opened Dec. 12 and will close on March 12, after which time the service will evaluate the input and determine whether to list the monarch.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Martha Williams said by working together,
the species will be enjoyed for generations to come.
“The iconic monarch butterfly is cherished across North America, captivating children and adults throughout its fascinating lifecycle. Despite its fragility, it is remarkably resilient, like many things in nature when we just give them a chance,” Williams said in a news release.
In North America, monarchs are grouped into two long-distance migratory populations.
The eastern migratory population is the largest and overwinters in the mountains of central Mexico, while the western migratory population primarily overwinters in coastal California, the release said.
Since the 1980s and ’90s, the eastern migratory population is estimated to have declined by approximately 80%, while the western migratory population has declined by more than 95%.
Gerald Fauske, an entomology research specialist at North Dakota State University, said the species as a whole is not in danger of extinction, but trouble could lie ahead for western monarchs.
“That population is critically endangered. It’s just one bad event away from being extinct,” Fauske told The Forum.
For eastern populations, what may be endangered is the phenomenon of monarch migration, where the butterflies cover trees in spectacular fashion.
“It would be sad,” Fauske said. “You’d just see the occasional monarch here and there.”
The single biggest threat to the monarch is logging activity on their overwintering grounds.
Monarchs need an unbroken tree canopy to help protect them from freezing temperatures, Fauske said.
They roost in groups, with an inner layer of butterflies holding onto tree branches and outer layers clinging to each other.
Even selected logging breaks the canopy cover, he said.
Another threat is climate change, where increasing frequency and severity of weather events can disrupt the monarch’s reproductive cycle and drain their energy reserves.
A third threat is insecticide residue, a problem that played out in the Fargo area in August 2020
in an event dubbed the “monarch massacre.”
Scores of butterflies died after a round of aerial spraying for mosquitoes on Aug. 26 that year,
during prime time monarch migration.
“It was a blunder, but it wasn’t unusual that it could have happened. It’s just sad that it did,” Fauske said.
The incident prompted the start of conversations
a few months later between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, American Mosquito Control Association and butterfly advocacy organizations.
To help with conservation efforts, the federal agency is also proposing nearly 4,400 acres of critical habitat for western monarchs at overwintering sites in coastal California.
Such a designation imposes no requirements on state or private land unless the action involves federal funding, permits or approvals, the agency said.
Fauske has some concerns about land use being dictated to protect a species, if the landowner does not receive compensation.
He also fears such a move could be used as an argument to abolish the Endangered Species Act by the incoming presidential administration.
No matter what happens in that regard, people can take steps on their own to protect monarch butterflies.
They can plant patches of native milkweed, the host plant and only food source for monarch caterpillars.
They can raise the butterflies by placing monarch larvae and chrysalises on milkweed outdoors, subjecting them to natural day and night cycles.
Monarchs raised indoors, in captivity, very often have an increased parasite load that can be passed to wild populations, Fauske said.
For more information about the monarch listing proposal and about how to help conserve monarch butterflies, people may visit the
Save the Monarch page on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website.