Quick Take
This year, Natural Bridges, Lighthouse Field and Moran Lake saw the largest clusters of monarchs in the state. But the big cluster locally belies a dismaying trend – monarchs are decreasing across the state. Jonathan Evans, environmental health legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity, unpacks the trend, discusses new proposals designed to protect monarchs and offers tips on what residents can do in their own backyards. Note: Planting milkweed is not always advised.
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The return of the monarchs each year is one of the many wonders of living next to Monterey Bay. Monarch butterflies flutter in clouds in the winter along the Santa Cruz County coastline after coming back from their astonishing multigenerational summer migration, spreading through all states west of the Rocky Mountains.
But researchers have found a troubling trend in monarch populations, and there are important ways that we can help monarchs buck that trend in our own backyard.
This year’s recently completed annual butterfly count, led by the Xerces Society, found that the state’s largest clusters of overwintering monarchs were observed right here in Santa Cruz County – including Natural Bridges and Lighthouse Field state beaches, as well as Moran Lake.
Helping your local monarchs
Native nectar plants in Santa Cruz County include seaside daisy (Erigeron glaucus), blue dicks (Dichelostemma capitatum), yarrow (Achillea millefolium), goldenrod (Solidago species), and manzanita (Arctostaphylos species).
For more options, plus notes on when and how to plant monarch-friendly options, check out this guide from the Xerces Society.
The dismaying news is that this year’s monarch numbers were alarmingly low, with fewer than 3,500 of the orange and black wonders spotted at those three locations. Statewide, the count revealed a peak population of only 9,119 butterflies, the second-lowest winter population recorded since the counts began back in 1997.
That’s a troubling drop from each of the previous three years, when more than 200,000 monarchs were counted. And all those recent numbers pale in comparison to the millions of monarchs that were estimated to have returned to the California coast each winter back in the 1980s.
Migratory monarchs are in trouble across North America. Western monarchs are a distinct population largely separate from the Eastern population that overwinters in the mountains of Mexico. Officials there typically release their annual estimate of the population size in March.
This year’s Eastern monarch count is expected to mirror the previous year, which at around 20 million butterflies was the second-lowest since the counting began in the mid-1990s. Having declined by more than 80%, the Eastern population numbers less than one-sixth the size needed to avoid migratory collapse.
Scientists who study monarchs say migratory monarch populations are fluctuating far too drastically and need Endangered Species Act protections to prevent their ongoing plunge toward extinction.
That’s why in December, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to protect the struggling butterflies as a threatened species, in response to an Endangered Species listing petition co-authored by the Center for Biological Diversity.
If the proposal is finalized, monarchs will gain not only added protections from harm but also a comprehensive recovery plan and ongoing funding to help restore their overwintering and breeding habitats.
Those plans include the designation of more than 4,300 acres of land in California as critical habitat for monarchs, including nearly 300 acres of the Santa Cruz County coastline.
Experts say it’s more important than ever that we all take steps in our own backyards and balconies to increase chances that the wondrous monarch migration will continue for future generations.
Because monarch adults feed on hundreds of flowers, people should plant native nectar plants and flowers that bloom in late fall and early spring to give the butterflies the fuel they need for their migrations.
It’s also crucial to refrain from using pesticides or plants grown from pesticide-coated seeds. All stages of monarchs are harmed by the neonicotinoid insecticides used not only in crop seed coatings but on ornamental plants.
Choosing organic foods also helps. Going organic reduces the threat of herbicides on farm fields that damage neighboring milkweed plants, which monarch caterpillars need to grow, or insecticides that can kill the monarchs themselves.
But experts caution us to avoid planting milkweed within 5 miles of the coast here in Santa Cruz, because milkweed isn’t native to the area and can discourage monarchs from their natural, healthy migration. In other parts of the monarch’s range, milkweed should be cut back by Oct. 1, and tropical milkweed, an invasive species, should always be avoided.
Santa Cruz residents can also help plant native trees near overwintering sites of eucalyptus groves or restore native plants along our coast. Groups like Groundswell Coastal Ecology, the Coastal Watershed Council and the Santa Cruz County Parks Department host volunteer efforts to bring back native plants and remove invasive species.
You can also volunteer to join the Western Monarch Count and help track the status of migratory Western monarchs & their overwintering habitat.
Beyond local efforts, through March 12 you can submit a comment to let the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service know you support comprehensive efforts to save monarchs.
What’s clear is that monarchs need help from all of us, not just so families like mine and yours can continue to experience the joy of their return every fall, but because every single species deserves to thrive.
Jonathan Evans is the environmental health legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity and a resident of Live Oak. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national nonprofit conservation organization dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.