Despite recent news that overwintering monarch butterfly populations have increased 35% in the past year, these graceful creatures are still facing an unsteady future after years of ongoing decline. Monarch butterflies are a migratory species. Eastern monarch butterflies, which make up the vast majority of monarch butterflies in North America, travel from southern Canada and […]
Tag: Monarch Butterfly
Shorebirds threatened by disc-golf course on dune habitat without public consultation
“The importance of urban nature has never been greater. During the last year and a half of the epidemic, city dwellers all across the world have sought out and loved urban nature more than ever… Now is the time to reaffirm our commitment to green space design and protection.” —Toronto Mayor John Tory, in a […]
Petition: Protect Monarch Butterflies
Human actions are decimating our planet and making it harder for those who live on it to survive. One such being is the Monarch butterfly. These beautiful creatures are vital pollinators and help keep the ecosystem in balance. Monarch butterfly populations have been declining rapidly. While there were around 1.2 million in the 1990s, there […]
Insects are vanishing from our planet at an alarming rate. But there are ways to help them
Insects have been around for more than 400m years, their ancestors crawling from the oceans to colonise the land long before dinosaurs appeared. They have been enormously successful, evolving into a staggering diversity of more than 1m known species, with perhaps as many as another 4m yet to be described by science. There are more […]
The insect apocalypse: ‘Our world will grind to a halt without them’
Ihave been fascinated by insects all my life. One of my earliest memories is of finding, at the age of five or six, some stripy yellow-and-black caterpillars feeding on weeds in the school playground. I put them in my empty lunchbox, and took them home. Eventually they transformed into handsome magenta and black moths. This […]
Petition: List Monarch Butterflies as Threatened Under the Endangered Species Act
Monarch butterflies are such a beautiful species. Aside from being lovely to look at it, Monarch butterflies also play an important role in our environment. They are vital pollinators and food sources for other creatures. These small insects play a big role in keeping a balanced ecosystem. Sadly, the population of Monarch butterflies is on […]
Western monarch butterflies are nearly extinct. California has a plan to save them
In one of the biggest mobilizations of resources and talent ever organized to save an insect, the state of California is teaming with conservation groups, biologists and scores of citizen scientists to rescue the western monarch butterfly from the brink of extinction. To do this, they are placing their hopes on an unassuming, poisonous plant […]
Butterfly numbers plummeting in US west as climate crisis takes toll
The varied, and beautiful, butterfly species that dot the US west are being cut down by the climate crisis, new research has found, with rising temperatures helping cause a steep decline in butterfly numbers over the past 40 years. There has been a 1.6% reduction in the total number of butterflies observed west of the […]