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Monarch butterfly populations in U.S. west are down an order of magnitude
- PavlovsCat 8y agoDown an order of magnitude... from last year! > Surveyors at 97 sites found only 20,456 monarchs compared to 148,000 at the same sites last year, an 86% decline. I have no words..
- mixmastamyk 8y agoAny news about the pesticides killing off bees and butterflies? Have any been banned yet?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- greeneggs 8y agoThe main neonicotinoids were banned in the EU in 2018. (Partial restrictions were put in place in 2013.) [1] In the US, there's been basically no action. (The Fish and Wildlife Service has reversed an Obama-era ban on their use in wildlife refuges.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neonicotinoid
- trgn 8y agoI planted milkweed in my front yard. These plants don't come cheap, between 10-20$ at the nursery for a young plant. I never was able to grow them from seed. Anyways, the plants did attract a few monarchs late summer/early fall. I counted two. I planted nine total. I got a code violation warning last month for not mowing my front yard and having overgrown "landscape weeds".
- sjg007 8y agoIf you get cited you can appeal based on the milkweed.
- bmurphy1976 8y agoI planted milkweed seed about 3 years ago. Had my first plant that sprouted and survived in the spot I planted just this past summer. Give it some time, you never know. Some seeds have to go through a freeze/thaw cycle or two to sprout properly.
- FlyMoreRockets 8y agoYou have inspired me, thank you. Thanks to your inspiration, I'll be planting as many milkweed plants as I think will grow here, in addition to my usual off-grid food planting. Little by little, I am nursing this overgrazed plot into a complex microcosm. The plot is in a major migration route and this is the first year I'll be actively be supporting Monarchs, other than planting my usual garden herbs. They seem to like carrots and parsley. You have inspired me, thank you, trgn.
- chrisswanda 8y agoDo some searching; there are many free or subsidized milkweed organizations. One example - https://monarchwatch.org/bring-back-the-monarchs/milkweed/free-milkweeds-for-restoration-projects/ https://monarchwatch.org/bring-back-the-monarchs/milkweed/fr...
- FlyMoreRockets 8y agoThanks, I'll check them out. In the meantime, I have nearly two acres fallow in a major migration route down the Rio Grande, about a quarter mile from the river. Every year, the butterfly migrations make my heart soar. I look forward to seeing them blossom a few years down the road.
- trolololooo 8y agoYou are a good human, thank you.
- stinos 8y agoI got a code violation warning last month for not mowing my front yard and having overgrown "landscape weeds" This is ... fascinating for me. For a number of reasons. Like, it's the exact opposite of what I do with my 'lawn' and makes me feel naive and like I've been living under a rock for not realizing there are places where people actually get warnings for this. Can you elaborate in what kind of place you live, which country? What are the reasons behind such code? Do you think whomever gave you that warning would listen to sientific arguments of why such code is pretty much the opposite of what would be appropriate when it comes to nature?
- jazzyjackson 8y agoResidential neighborhoods don't want nature. Nature means snakes, possums, bats, all kinds of critters that do well with lots of small brush and tall grass and then find themselves inside somebody's house. That's the reason I was given to not plant lots of brush around a house I was renting. If you make the land around the houses inhospitable to life, you're less likely to have life living in your air vents, attic, etc. Just a perspective to why lawns are kept tight.
- zcid 8y agoOn top of what jazzyjackson said, a lot of people correlate well-manicured lawns with property value. For instance, quite a few place won't allow vegetable gardens in the front yard. It gives an impression of poverty. Which makes me wander what is the best word for modern suburban aesthetic. Sterility?
- village-idiot 8y agoBlight.
- trgn 8y agoPretty normal older suburban neighborhood in the midwest, no HOA or covenants or anything like that. I expect some busybody neighbor called local 311. Most front yards are just mowed grass. People do plant trees, shrubs, and have flower beds for annuals. I read online that people get around it by making the plants look more intentional. Next spring, I'll frame the milkweed with boxwoods and put a sign with something like "our neighborhood butterfly garden" or something.
- zhte415 8y ago> I got a code violation warning last month for not mowing my front yard That sucks. Why do such restrictions exist? My whole front yard is ivy and bushes. There's no mowing that, and it looks very pleasant (and the frogs like it, too).
- happertiger 8y agoHow? Homeowners associations. I planted milkweed in an empty side yard and was cited for the same thing. Also I was cited for having a browning lawn. My neighbors brought me a bag of weed-and-feed (basically lawn seed with pesticide) because he thought I did not know how to “do the lawn.” Very sweet, but all I wanted was not to kill everything. Wasn’t allowed.
- zhte415 8y agoJust thinking how I would react in that situation... the concept being alien to me (UK, and having lived in various other countries) perhaps little wooden signs around the garden explaining the features of each plant and multi-plant eco-system, and one for the grass too, perhaps in the shape of a sheep.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- justinph 8y agoFrom what I've read, urban areas are the refuge for monarchs since there are people like you that plant it, and areas that don't get pesticide applications. It is rural areas that are blanked with pesticides that are the problem. You can cover large distances in the rural areas of the country where everything is sprayed and there is no milkweed.
- selimthegrim 8y ago"Its population has fallen by 97% since the 1980s, and is at just 99.5% of its original abundance." I assume they mean 0.5%?
- cryptonector 8y agoThis seems like part of the insect apocalypse story, and bee colony collapse disorder. All probably caused by overuse of insecticides. Note that if we don't find a way to correct this, it can be catastrophic on a timescale that makes the most alarmist climate change predictions seem like nothing. There must be some percentage of normal insect population density below which population of frogs and birds and what not will fall even farther, with knock-on impact elsewhere. One wonders how much of a boy-who-cried-wolf effect we might be seeing. Alarmism gets tiresome, so it's important to ring the alarm about the most urgent problems first. The insect apocalypse -if it is real, which I've a feeling it very much is- is probably a problem we can ameliorate quickly once we decide to, and it will worsen quickly if we don't. But climate change gets all the attention and sucks the oxygen out of the room.
- the8472 8y agoYou're assuming that's just due to insecticides. Insects are exposed to multiple stressors. One of them also happens to be global warming. Others are habitat loss, insecticides, invasive species, etc. In fact the researchers measuring the loss of insect biomass in puerto rico rainforests attributed it primarily to climate change since the other factors do not apply there.
- Flozzin 8y agoI was going to mention the same thing. I too up until the puerto rico article blamed insecticides. But something much larger seems to be going on. https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/15/hyperalarming-study-shows-massive-insect-loss https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2018/10/15/hyperalarm...
- campercoder 8y agoClimate change is causing this. Every ecoystem on Earth took 10s of millions of years to find it's equilibrium. Everything living in those ecosystems is a product of millions of years of adaptation and evolution. If you go and change the temperature, the amount of water & the seasons, then it is a big rug pull under the feet of evolution. Everything can and will collapse. Look at what is happening in the arctic... now that permafrost is melting, you have massive, uncontrolled methane release. People think that we can continue to pump CO2. We are very wrong about that. I just wish it were the pine beetles as the ones dying out.
- monetus 8y agoIf the pesticides were banned, how fast would their population be replenished? Or do they persist, akin to CFCs?
- lurquer 8y ago>This year’s steep drop is probably due to extreme weather, at least partly resulting from climate change. Late rainstorms in March, as well as an intense, extended wildfire season across California, have battered the species. The state’s forests have yet to recover from the record-breaking drought stretching from 2011 to 2017.
- monetus 8y agoI read the article; I was just assuming that pesticide use is only thing we are likely to affect in the near future. Habitat reclamation seems unlikely? I'm relatively clueless in this regard and was just inviting comment.
- code_duck 8y agoThis is about in line with the intelligence with which I see people pursuing their interactions with the natural world around us. “A bare patch of dirt?? Let’s pay someone to spray it with Round-Up! On all of our 480 locations”
- sokoloff 8y agoThough I agree with the end effect, the reality is closer to “let’s pay a landscape company to take care of this thing that isn’t our core business” (perfectly rational) and then the landscape company figures out the most cost-effective way to accomplish that. If that lens is correct, asking people to forego landscape services isn’t the right response, but rather to better educate and/or regulate landscaping services and their chemical use.
- code_duck 8y agoThe choice of landscaping materials and chemicals is ultimately up to the customer. Ideally, people would be aware and care that a landscaping company is needlessly pouring poison all over their property. The best plan would be to design spaces that don’t ‘need’ weedkiller or leaf blowing.
- sokoloff 8y agoAnyone with 480 locations probably isn't making detailed selections on chemicals used by their landscaping contractors.
- code_duck 8y agoYes, that is basically the problem
- cma 8y ago> The choice of landscaping materials and chemicals is ultimately up to the customer. Not true, there are all kinds of regulations. You can't use DDT for insects in basic landscaping, for example. If it had been heavily used in landscaping (not sure it made sense), the solution to DDT's toxic effects wouldn't have been to educate individuals. When there are big negative externalities, the government usually needs to step in.
- nrjames 8y agoMy father, who lives on the NC coast, has monarch caterpillars all over his milkweed right now. It’s very late for them to be there. Let’s hope they make it before the weather gets too cold!
- cityofdelusion 8y agoI live in the migration path in Texas and we cut our milkweed to the ground in mid fall after the first cold front. It supposedly discourages monarchs from overwintering so they keep migrating.
- todopoderoso 8y agoIf you want to see where the Monarch butterflies migrate to in the winter and what such a thing looks like, there's a great reserve near the city of Angangueo, Mexico (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angangueo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angangueo). 3.5hr bus ride from Mexico City. You get up in the morning and take a taxi higher into the mountains to the reserve, getting out and walking further up the mountain's roped off trail. The trail terminates into a small, flat observation area. And if you go early enough, you might wonder where the hell all the butterflies are. But on closer inspection of the tall trees around you, you'll notice most of what you thought were leaves and bark are really clumps and clumps of sleeping (and half-frozen?) butterflies. Once the sun comes out, these masses of butterflies seem to wake up and stretch their wings, warming them up before descending the mountain in one never-ending flock, landing in a grassy clearing (about 50m back down the trail) to drink from a stream and frolic in the sun. Butterflies will be everywhere, swooping past you in incredible numbers or landing on you -- especially if you're wearing bright colors. Cool experience, charming little town, and beautiful landscape. As things become more dire for these little guys, might be worth a visit. I thought Angangueo would've been warm since it's a migratory winter destination, but it's super cold and colder than most of the climates the butterflies abandoned in the north. The place we stayed at had no hot water or fireplace. But a little bit of adversity, like seeing your own breath while trying to fall asleep, makes a travel experience a little richer upon recollection. :)
- klenwell 8y agoOne of the most magical experiences I've had in my life was a morning out surfing alone in Huntington Beach years ago. It was a weekday in... I don't remember the time of year. October? May? When do they usually end up in Southern California?[0] The details are in a journal or lost text file somewhere. It was a beautiful Southern California morning. Clear skies, a breath of offshores, clean inconsistent chest-high waves. I was sitting outside waiting for the next wave. And all of the sudden a few Monarch butterflies flew past me. And they were followed by a few more. And more after that. A steady stream of orange and black butterflies fluttering past me. Coming in OFF the ocean towards shore. Was it 5 minutes? 15 minutes? An hour? The procession ended. I remember spotting the butterflies here and there the rest of the day, even many miles inland. C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. Moments that will be lost to those who follow us. [0] https://www.tripsavvy.com/monarch-butterflies-in-california-1474048 https://www.tripsavvy.com/monarch-butterflies-in-california-...
- canada_dry 8y agoWhen I was a kid it was normal to see a few dead monarchs in the grill of dad's car. So was having a dozen house flys indoors. Nowadays I never see a monarch and I can leave the windows of the house open all day and not see a fly or any bugs for that matter.
- pulisse 8y agoEntomologists sometimes talk of the "windscreen phenomenon": peoples' sense that inspect splatter on windshields used to be a daily occurrence, but isn't any more.
- bbojan 8y agoAs I believe that Earth is the only life-bearing planet in our galaxy, if not the whole Universe, I'm extremely saddened with news like this of a near-extinction of yet another fascinating species. My only hope is that humanity will spread among the stars, dispersing what species remain to billions of new worlds, and that this might be our redemption for the unspeakable crimes we have committed against life...
- culot 8y agoIf there are other planets with life on them then humanity could be more like a plague, choking out who knows how many ecosysyems on however many planets, much in the sane manner we've done here. If humans cannot develop a healthy balance on this planet - which is unlikely, as drastic population and industrial reduction would be necessary and right quick - then we do not deserve to escape this planet. Humanity spreading to other planets at this point would be akin to a disease spreading.
- riffraff 8y agoI hope it doesn't happen but if earth becomes inhospitable to mankind and we all die it won't be the end of "life". Earth had mass extinction events where 90%+ of living things died, and life just came up with some new stuff and recovered.
- Joeri 8y agoA highly likely explanation for why we’re seemingly the only intelligent life in a vast universe is the great filter, something in the path between inert matter and a galactic civilization that prevents progressing along said path. What if there have been hundreds of human-like intelligent species in our galaxy, and what if all of them wiped themselves out before spreading among the stars? What would that say about us? Anyway, there’s an interesting podcast “the end of the world” that covers this in depth.
- lurquer 8y agoI'm no statistician, but the general trend seems to be upward for the last ten years. https://www.westernmonarchcount.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/WMTC-1997-2017-graph.png https://www.westernmonarchcount.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/... Indeed, but for some out-of-whack numbers in 1997, the data looks fairly non-hysteria-inducing. I wonder if anything was happening in the counties where the count took place this year that might have affected the 'volunteer citizen scientist' participation? Hmm... I seem to remember something... what was it? Can't put my finger on it... I guess I'll just assume the world is ending and all insects are disappearing.
- a_bonobo 8y agoThe general trend that goes upward in your graph isn't the number of butterflies, but the number of 'sites monitored', i.e., places where they searched for butterflies. In the time that monitored sites went from ~400,000 to ~1,400,000 the number of reported butterflies stayed roughly the same (~200,000), which should be grave cause for concern. The number of butterflies should be a linear correlation with the number of sites (unless all sites are chosen completely badly (like the inside of a factory), which is highly unlikely). Then again, maybe 1997, the first year with 1,200,000 butterflies in ~500,000 sites was a strong outlier, and the numbers past 1999 are the 'reality' which is always hang 200,000. We'd need a time machine to check, or find old data, or find a way to count butterflies in the past (I guess they don't preserve well?)
- cpeterso 8y agoGood point. OTOH, perhaps the most fruitful sites were already monitored in 1997 and the new sites were peripheral and not expected to see as many butterflies. Also, the graph doesn't define "Total Monarch Abundance". That number might be an extrapolation of butterflies scaled by the number of sites, not the literal number of butterflies counted.
- lurquer 8y ago>The general trend that goes upward in your graph isn't the number of butterflies, but the number of 'sites monitored', i.e., places where they searched for butterflies. With all due respect, I can read a graph. I was referring to the total amount of butterflies. There is no data on the site to permit one to draw any correlation between the number of monitoring sites and the number of butterflies. We could add 10,000 additional monitoring sites in Antarctica and it would tell us nothing. There is no data to give any indication that ANYONE even was reporting at any particular site or how many were reporting. In short, the organization's data is useless... at least the data easily available on their site. And, it's certainly insufficient to justify the handwringing in some of the comments.
- Proven 8y agoThere's a word for "down an order of magnitude"
- rgovostes 8y agoSouth of the Bay Area in Santa Cruz is Natural Bridges State Beach, through which monarchs allegedly migrate. I was around that area for around two years and I can't remember ever seeing one.
- samcheng 8y agoThey were there a couple of weeks ago, and should be there now (they winter in the eucalyptus grove). Thousands of them.
- DuskStar 8y agoThis is one of the most obviously not proofread articles I've seen in a while, particularly among ones that made it to HN. For example: > a 2017 modeling paper in Biological Conservation (pdf) found that 30,000 butterflies adult butterflies are probably the smallest viable population. "butterflies" is repeated. > Its population has fallen by 97% since the 1980s, and is at just 99.5% of its original abundance. If Monarch populations were at 99.5% of their original abundance, we'd be celebrating or heavily investigating why they haven't been more adversely affected by human activity. They almost certainly mean 0.5%. Now the first might be a "minor" error, but it's still something obvious enough to be caught on a scan. The second? That's a massive factual error. Seriously, who publishes stuff like this?
- avip 8y agoInsects are packing their things and getting ready to depart.
- rapnie 8y agoTangential: helping insects. I could obtain free wildflower seeds from a Dutch foundation aiming to protect the bees, and last Spring I did some 'guerilla sowing' on bare patches of land waiting for new building construction. Big success. The nutrition-poor soil apparently was ideal, and in places dense flower beds appeared. It gave me huge satisfaction to not only see bees and other insects, but tourists and inhabitants making photographs, and children shouting excitingly "Look at all these flowers, mom!". A true win-win for humans and bees. Would be really easy for the municipality to adopt this as a policy and sow all these temporary spots with flowers.
- therealdrag0 8y agoWow. That's delightful. I'm gonna take note of this! Thanks for sharing.
- crispinb 8y agoAll our evolved natural systems are collapsing, and are being replaced by crude early-stage technological ones. "Fighting" each as a separate policy issue is a continuation of the fluffy-minded & neurotic economic/business attitude which cannot cope with facing physical reality. We're almost certainly stuffed. This was probably always inevitable, because the naked ape likely lacks whatever capacities might be needed to operate at planetary scale. But we'll never know, because we refused to even give the alternatives a try. Well, too late now.
- robotbikes 8y agoIt is certainly hard to not react with extreme cynicism to the daily onslaught of negative feedback from determining our world is suffering and good portions of are dying. But we need to as entities capable of thought and planning attempt to try new ways of coordinating our activities. We built a global communication network that allows us to talk in theory to any other living being on the planet with minimal effort and we don't know how to use it yet. Perhaps we need to really work to transform our society to disrupt the shackles that bind us to activities that are harmful instead of trading human bosses for algorithm as bosses. I can't speak for everyone and it's very easy to disparage others as uncaring, ignorant or incapable of action but I do think we need to try to save this planet from ecological collapse.
- crispinb 8y agoThe ecological collapses are now occurring at such a rapid pace that it would require a turnaround of unprecendented ambition, starting right now. The race isn't exactly against natural systems breaking down - that's a process that's going to continue for millenia. It's against the fragility of our own societies, built on human constitutions designed by evolution to operate effectively at far smaller scales. Tiny perturbations (compared to what's coming) cause major social convulsions (eg. Europe 2015). What do you think will happen when billions of climate change refugees flood the world? When the first agricultural collapses occur? Wars will sweep the world, what exists of global cooperation will cease, and a positive feedback loop ensues.
- speedplane 8y ago
- jenks 8y agoM O N S A N T O. Please take a few moment to research the once ammunition production companies history, and current power in the world farming industry. https://www.organicconsumers.org/campaigns/millions-against-monsanto https://www.organicconsumers.org/campaigns/millions-against-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAZmHIiN8VI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAZmHIiN8VI It's not ironic that the company which had an instrumental impact on creating the polonium-based initiators in atomic bombs during the Manhattan Project still continues creating world-ending technologies today.
- calebm 8y agoI stopped using chemical weed killer on my yard a couple years ago, and I have noticed more monarchs this summer than in the past few years combined.
- zeruch 8y agoI was at Natural Bridges a few weeks back, which is supposed to be a haven for monarchs...there were almost no clusters there (maybe 3, when there should be dozens or more at a minimum).