Stop killing milkweed!

A monarch butterfly alights on a milkweed. (Susana Gonzalez, AFP/Getty Images)

Bruce Finley writes:

Schoolchildren and seniors are pushing to undo an ecological catastrophe threatening monarch butterflies — by planting the milkweed that monarchs need.

The dwindling of migrating monarchs has been so swift that federal scientists say farmers, utilities, homeowners and public-land managers also must get involved. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials estimate monarchs have declined by about 95 percent since 1996, to 33 million from 1 billion.

While monarchs draw nectar from many flowers before laying eggs, their caterpillars can survive only on milkweed. Monarchs' 3,000-mile migration from Canada through the United States to wintering sites in Mexico requires multiple generations of butterflies because each can fly only about 100 miles.

The butterflies are victims of prairie conversion and increasing use of glyphosate herbicides. These herbicides, sprayed on crops genetically modified to withstand them, kill other plants, including the milkweed that once served as habitat for pollinators such as butterflies, bats and bees.

In addition to students at about a dozen schools, senior citizens along the Front Range have mobilized to plant milkweed, said horticulture director Amy Yarger at the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster.

"The real impact is going to come when all the individual gardeners encourage municipalities not to spray milkweed and kill it," Yarger said. "We should allow milkweed along roads and in ditches, not mow it down, not spray it. This absolutely can be done."

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