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Showy milkweed seedlings9/1/2023 ![]() While the counts of wintering monarch butterflies currently are in progress along the west coast, some initial results from 2022 suggest that numbers of wintering western monarch butterflies might be as high or higher than last year, which saw a slight rebound from disastrously low numbers (<2,000) tallied in 2020 at traditional wintering sites in tree groves along the west coast (see: Xerces Society). Similarly, the western population of monarch butterflies has declined >99% since the 1980s leading to concern that the western population also might be in danger of extinction (see: Xerces Society Biological Conservation). Major concern for the conservation status of monarchs intensified by the 1990s when the eastern population of monarchs that overwinter in the Oyamel fir ( Abies religiosa) forests in the mountains of Central Mexico began rapidly declining. Adult monarch butterflies will feed on nectar and gain energy from a large variety of flowers, but milkweed is required to reproduce. It’s also well known as a host specialist that relies exclusively on milkweed ( Asclepias spp.) on which it lays its eggs and on which larvae (caterpillars) feed and grow before turning into adult butterflies. Assuming you do like butterflies, you’ve undoubtedly heard of the conservation crisis for perhaps the most widely-recognized butterfly in the United States, the monarch butterfly ( Danaus plexippus). The monarch is highly recognizable given its large size, distinctive orange and black markings, and its widespread distribution across the United States. Most people seem to like butterflies, but yes, even butterflies are controversial. In fact, if we weren’t always fighting, bickering, and arguing with each other so much, it’s valid to wonder if humans might then go extinct from pure boredom! īut at the risk of being controversial, I’ll suggest that some level of controversy, or at least disagreement or uncertainty, often drives the pursuit of science and the quest to discover how the world and the universe operates. Pretty much any subject that you can come up with in the human or natural world is controversial in one way or another. If humans are good at one thing, it’s undoubtedly controversy. Monarch butterfly produced in the WSU Arboretum during a 2016 breeding event.
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