Federal Legislation Could Mean Brighter Future for OR Monarch Butterflies
Thursday, December 23, 2021
Oregon is a critical breeding ground for western monarch butterflies. Human disruption has destroyed much of the pollinator's native territories, but a new piece of federal legislation could help stabilize the state's declining monarch population.
The bipartisan Recovering America's Wildlife Act would provide states with nearly $1.4 billion annually to implement new conservation strategies.
Scott Black, executive director of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, said increased funding would be a major boon to monarch conservation efforts.
"One of the key issues we have in conservation, especially conservation of some of these smaller animals, is funding," Black pointed out. "The Recovering America's Wildlife Act provides substantial funding for conservation at the state level."
The Xerces Society's 2020 Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count, an annual census of butterflies along the West Coast, recorded just over 1,900 monarchs, down from nearly 200,000 in 2017.
Meanwhile, the Recovering America's Wildlife Act was introduced in the House of Representatives in April, and has not yet received a vote.
Rebeca Quiñonez-Piñón, chief monarch recovery strategist with the National Wildlife Federation, said the act would also invest in researching monarchs' migration patterns, a critical piece of knowledge for preserving breeding grounds.
"We still need to learn a lot about how the monarchs travel through the different pathways," Quiñonez-Piñón noted. "Which is amazing, the amount of habitat they can cover through their fall and spring migration."
While Congress considers the bill, Black noted there are some immediate steps communities can take to prevent further collapse of monarch populations. He explained urban and suburban pesticides are a major threat to the butterflies.
"Towns and cities can take action. They could lead by example," Black asserted. "They could stop using pesticides, or at least as many pesticides, in their parks and other municipal spaces."
Black added there is another bill in Congress to support the butterflies. The MONARCH Act, another piece of bipartisan federal legislation, would allocate more than $120 million specifically to monarch conservation efforts.
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