Based on counts at 213 separate sites, the number of Western Monarch Butterflies has dropped to just 28,429. That means the population of the orange and black butterfly has declined 86 percent from just 1 year ago. That’s an all-time low for the West Coast, where an estimated 10 million Monarch Butterflies lived as recently as the 1980s.
People and governments are encouraged to:
- Protect and manage California overwintering sites.
- Restore breeding and migratory habitat in California, particularly habitat along the coast range, foothills and Sacramento Valley.
- Stop spraying pesticides and herbicides near milkweed, (which is their primary habitat).
- Protect, manage, and restore summer breeding (and fall migration habitat) outside of California.
Because butterflies are a keystone species, the dramatic drop in the monarch population could indicate that a variety of species of insects, bees, and birds-that-eat-insects are also at risk of extinction.
