Endangered monarchs 'not protected in any way,' Manitoba prof says

Manitoba's monarch butterfly population is the endangered species that makes an annual migration to and from the forests in central Mexico — a species now considered closer to extinction — yet its survival is resting on a wing and a prayer.

"They're not protected in any way. That means that I or anyone else could walk out with a net and catch and kill one if we wished," said Jeffrey Marcus, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Manitoba

"It really is an iconic butterfly. It's one of the few butterfly species that essentially everyone in North America recognizes. If we were to, for whatever reason, lose that butterfly as part of our natural environment, we would all feel that loss."

The monarch butterfly was added on Thursday to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's "red list" of threatened species and categorized as endangered — two steps from extinct.

The group estimates that the population of monarchs in North America has declined between 22 per cent and 72 per cent over 10 years, depending on the measurement method.

"It's really disheartening news whenever you get a species that's added to these lists that enumerate all the endangered and critically endangered species," said Dr. Stephen Petersen, director of conservation and research for Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg.

"It makes everyone involved sad, because there's reasons they're declining, and we're not stopping them."

Canadian law designates the migratory monarch (as opposed to the nonmigratory ones in Central and South America, which are not endangered) as a species of special concern.

While that earmarks funding for research, conservation efforts in areas that monarchs rely on, and education of the public, it offers zero protection, said Marcus, who describes his specialty as "a butterfly evolutionary geneticist."

Listing it as threatened would require someone to have a special permit in order to take or kill one, while putting it on the endangered list would outright prohibit that.

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, which advises the environment minister on which species are at risk, has designated the monarch as endangered, but the federal government has not added it to the endangered list in the Species at Risk Act, so it does not get those protections.

Designation holds no authority

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature's designation also holds no power, other than to raise awareness, Marcus said. It's up to governments to do something concrete.

"So the IUCN, in acting in this way … encourages the member states of the United Nations to take steps to protect the species."

However, governments are up against resistance by private interests, even when efforts are made, Marcus said.

The butterfly's overwintering habitats in South America are actually already under protection, and that is on display when the insects, tourists and wildlife officials are around.

"But in the off-season, when there are no butterflies around, the loggers will go into these stands of trees and they'll start taking down large trees," Marcus said. Better enforcement of those protections is necessary, he said.

In Canada and the United States, along the butterfly's migratory route, the issue is with those working in agriculture who really don't want to an endangered species linked to their property because they don't want to put mitigation steps in place, he said.

"Landowners who rely on their property for income, of course, are very reluctant to have additional restraints on how they use their own property."

There has been large-scale habitat loss due to changes in farming and the use of insecticides as well as herbicides that kill off milkweed, a key plant in the butterfly's survival, Petersen said.

Climate change is also "playing havoc" with populations by altering the timing of when those plants are in the right stage for the butterflies to use them, he said.

"So we have this mismatch between what the insects want to do and what the plants that they rely on are doing."

Making the monarch a flagship conservation species would not only protect it but also protect all of the habitats it relies on, "and that it ranges from roadsides here in Manitoba … to its overwintering sites in Mexico," he said.

While the federal government has to add the monarch to the Species at Risk Act endangered list to give it legislated protection, there are things the general public can do.

Grow flowers

Marcus and Petersen encourage people to grow wildflowers, milkweed and patches of non-native plants that are good nectar plants for butterflies.

"I think it would be great, with people taking this really sad news, to turn it into something positive and turn it into action in their own garden," Petersen said.

Regular people who maintain habitats for both the caterpillars and the adults can help increase the number of monarch butterflies that emerge in Manitoba, Marcus said.

"And the more butterflies that start out the migration journey, the more butterflies actually arrive in Mexico at the overwintering sites. And the more butterflies that arrive at the overwintering sites, that increases the probability that a large number will be able to leave again to start in the next spring," he said.

"Taking the steps that are necessary in order to protect monarch butterflies are good for all sorts of reasons. It's good for our sense of well-being, but it's also good because by protecting monarchs, we wind up protecting all sorts of other things that share the habitats with monarchs."