| | |  Editorials 
Bad Year for Butterflies
 Houston Chronicle
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March 29, 2010
What would spring be without Monarch butterflies? To some degree, we're finding out. Scientists estimate that this year, the population of the migrating orange-and-black butterflies is down as much as 50 or 60 percent. One study counted the fewest butterflies leaving Mexico's wintering spots since the colonies were discovered there in 1975.
Part of the problem is bad weather: An especially cold, wet Mexican winter wiped out many Monarchs. This worries us only a little. In the grand scheme of things, butterflies have survived rough winters for eons.
What worries us more are longer-term changes to the butterflies' world. All Eastern Monarchs the ones that migrate through Texas spend their winters crammed into only 12 acres in the Transvolcanic Mountains, an area plagued by illegal logging. Loss of tree cover there exposes the butterflies, which are vulnerable to the cold rain.
But Monarchs don't leave their problems behind when they fly north. Monarch Watch, a University of Kansas-based group, notes that here in the U.S., their habitat is also threatened: Malls and houses have displaced farmland and forest edges, and milkweed Monarch caterpillars' baby food is becoming ever scarcer.
What can you do? For once, the answers are easy. Start with your own yard and avoid any herbicide that contains glyphosate, which is particularly hard on milkweed.
And better still, plant a butterfly garden with Monarch-friendly milkweed, flowers and bushes preferably ones native to the Houston area. Your new garden won't be ready in time to help the exhausted, hungry Monarch survivors now straggling through Houston. But this fall, you can fatten their hungry descendants. |
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