Feds to study whether monarch butterflies deserve Endangered Species Act protection

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Monday that monarch butterflies may warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Portland-based Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation had petitioned for such federal protection in August, in partnership with the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now has one year to conduct a status review of monarchs, which have declined by 90 percent in the past 20 years.

We are extremely pleased that the federal agency in charge of protecting our nations wildlife has recognized the dire situation of the monarch, says Sarina Jepsen, the Xerces Societys endangered species director. Protection as a threatened species will enable extensive monarch habitat recovery on both public and private lands.

Scientists say the dramatic decline of monarchs is being driven in large part by the widespread planting of genetically modified corn and soybeans in the Midwest, where most of the butterflies are born. Such crops are designed to be resistent to Monsantos Roundup herbicide, which is a potent killer of milkweed, the monarch caterpillars only food. Monarchs also are imperiled by heat waves, drought, other pesticides, urban sprawl and logging on their Mexican wintering grounds. Climate change is leading to more heat waves and drought.

There were an estimated 1 billion monarch butterflies in North America in the mid-1990s, but the population is down to about 35 million now.

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