Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2014 - 10

C Steps to Save the Monarchs
nancy henderson

creature
feature

mexico has become less hospitable for the butterflies'
migration, but there are things we can do here to help.

Left: The imperiled monarch. Right: Bill Haley (center) leads a butterfly count in a field near Chattanooga, Tenn.

each year for the past two
decades, Bill Haley has spotted
about a dozen monarchs during the
seasonal butterfly counts he's led in
southeast Tennessee.
"Last year, we didn't see any
monarchs at all in the spring," says
Haley, education outreach coordinator for the Tennessee Aquarium and
founder of the Tennessee Valley
chapter of the North American
Butterfly Association. "Their numbers are so reduced that we're just
not seeing them."
Haley's experience is merely a
microcosm of a much bigger problem: Monarch populations are on
the decline. According to the first
records kept of the insects' winter-

ing grounds, about 1 billion monarchs covered 17 acres of fir forests
in the mountains of Mexico in early
1994. By the winter of 2012-13,
that acreage had dwindled to three.
This year, only 1.65 acres of the
winged beauties were found.
"There's not just one cause," says
Haley. "It's a whole bunch of things
that are kind of ganging up on the
monarchs to knock them down."
For one thing, excessive heat and
drought conditions in Texas, where
most migrating monarchs funnel
into Mexico, have dried up oncereliable nectar sources. What's
more, the deforestation of Mexican
mountainsides has altered microclimates where the butterflies rou-

GeT INVOLVeD

here are a few things we can do:
* Provide milkweed for caterpillars; it is the only thing they eat. Species such as orange butterfly
weed are attractive, drought-tolerant and less invasive than common white milkweed.
* Plant a variety of nectar sources, such as zinnias, lantanas and fall-blooming asters. "Give the
butterflies a choice," says Haley. "Give 'em a buffet."
* Stop using herbicides and insecticides in your flower garden since these chemicals kill host
plants and caterpillars along with the weeds. "You've got to have a live-and-let-live attitude a
little bit," Haley says. "You can't get rid of all the insects."
* Blue Ridge homeowners can also make a difference by creating nourishing havens for the
monarchs to re-fuel.
10 | BlueRidgeCountry.com

tinely winter, making them more
susceptible to violent weather and
quick drops in temperature.
"There are times they've had terrible storms and there have been
tens of thousands or hundreds of
thousands of monarchs that have
died as a result," says Haley. "But
it's not all Mexico. There are things
that we're doing here in this country that are also impacting the
monarchs."
The increased use of herbicides,
sprayed freely near genetically modified crops that are herbicide-tolerant, have obliterated many nectar
plants. And vast farms with single
crops have replaced smaller plots
divided by fencerows where host
plants once flourished.
"That might as well be a desert
for a butterfly," Haley notes.
Wildlife experts are seeking ways
to protect the monarch's Mexican
wintering spots. But, says Haley,
"most of it is probably up to us
homeowners and creature lovers."
"We can provide stopover points
during their migration," Haley says.
"Be aware that butterflies need
these little islands of habitat.
Provide those and the butterflies
will find them." 

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Blue Ridge Country - September/October 2014

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