After spending the winter in coastal California woodlands, millions of western monarch butterflies used to travel to Oregon and other Western states every spring to lay their eggs, fertilize plants, and drink nectar from flowers. Today, however, just a few hundred thousand make the trip.
A federal wildlife foundation has awarded roughly $760,000 to enhance the habitat of monarchs in an effort to slow their decline. The funding comes from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit established by Congress in 1984 to allocate public and private funds to critical conservation projects, which has awarded $5.2 million in grants around the country.
Research from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, a nonprofit organization based in Portland and one of the grant recipients in Oregon, shows that the number of western monarchs has decreased by over 95% since the 1980s. In the 1980s, there were over 10 million. There were roughly 233,000 counted in the winter of 2023. This month, the US Fish and Wildlife Service will make a decision regarding the monarch’s inclusion on the federal Endangered Species List.
In a statement announcing the funding, U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon stated that if we permit the famous western monarch butterfly to become extinct, we will permanently lose not only this lovely species but also a vital pollinator.
As chair of the Senate’s Interior and Environmental Appropriations Subcommittee, he played a key role in securing the government money.
The Xerces Society will receive $300,000 to continue providing farmers and community organizations in the Willamette Valley and Klamath-Siskiyou regions of Oregon, as well as eastern Washington and California, with free kits that include native milkweed and pollinator-friendly wildflowers and shrubs. The goal is to expand the habitat that pollinator species like the western monarch can occupy.
According to a news release from Merkley’s office and that of Oregon’s other Democratic senator, Ron Wyden, the funds will be used to improve at least 500 acres of pollinator habitat, organize over a dozen events, and distribute kits to at least 200 people.
Nearly $460,000 of the remaining money will be used to support planning and conservation efforts on around 600 acres of private farm, ranch, timber, and working properties in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho through the nonprofit Pollinator Partnership, based in San Francisco. In addition to organizing events to increase public awareness of the species’ problems and how landowners may help, the group will assist landowners in developing conservation strategies.
Wyden stated in the release that monarch butterflies are essential pollinators on the West Coast, which is where a large portion of America’s food is grown. In addition to helping to maintain a species that represents the resilience and rebirth for which Oregonians are renowned, this investment will support an essential part of our food ecology.
The 2023 Monarch Action, Recovery and Conservation of Habitat Act, also known as the Monarch Act, was sponsored by Wyden and Merkley and provided $12.5 million over five years for habitat improvements for western monarchs. Merkely helped create a Pollinator Conservation Center at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and hosted the first Monarch Butterfly Summit with the U.S. Department of the Interior in 2022.
— Oregon Capital Chronicle’s Alex Baumhardt
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