I grew up on a farm in southern Ontario where, according to the article, little monarch breeding takes place. Among many features of the farm was pasture thick

I grew up on a farm in southern Ontario where, according to the article, little monarch breeding takes place. Among many features of the farm was pasture thick with milkweed. We did not interfere with it. As a kid, it was trivial during the summer to find monarch caterpillars. Normally, we'd bring one or two into the house each year, put them in a jar that we'd refresh daily with milkweed and watch the process of the caterpillar growing, entering a chrysalis and emerging as a monarch butterfly. Twenty five years later, when my city kids were the right age, I eagerly took them out to the pasture to find monarch caterpillars. The pasture was just as thick with milkweed as I remembered, but where is was once easy to find monarch caterpillars, year after year there were none to be found. Only one year were we able to find any. I too mourn the decline of the monarch butterfly, but whatever the cause, it can't be a mere 20% decline in milkweed population. My parents' farm still has the capacity to support the hundreds of monarchs it once did, yet as far as I can tell they are gone.