If the proposed rule is finalized, the butterfly would become one of the most widespread species ever protected under the law
U.S. officials moved Tuesday to protect the monarch, an iconic orange and black butterfly famous for its marathon migration across North America, under the Endangered Species Act.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's proposal to designate the tiny butterfly as threatened with extinction could have enormous consequences for landowners across its huge range, which extends across much of the Lower 48 as the monarch makes its epic annual flight from the mountains of Mexico through the United States and into Canada.
If the proposed rule is finalized, the monarch would become one of the most widespread species ever protected under the landmark law. But federal scientists say the move is necessary because several factors -- including logging in the butterfly's overwintering habitat in Mexico, destruction of grasslands in the United States, chemicals applied to the plants, and climate change -- are decimating its population.
"The species has been declining for a number of years," Fish and Wildlife biologist Kristen Lundh said in a video interview. "We're hoping that this is a call to everybody to say this species is in decline, and now is our opportunity to help reverse that decline."
If nothing is done, officials warn, the monarch is likely to vanish for good from the continent, though some monarch scientists outside the government say concerns about its demise are overblown.
Augie Bergstrom, the station manager for the Marion-based nonprofit Monarch Research Project, said he and the organization have been waiting for this announcement for quite some time.
"We started to hear murmurings of [the decision] last winter, once the news of the overwintering population came out last year, showing they had declined by 59 percent," Bergstrom said. "So that's kind of what kick started this."
The recommendation is a step in the right direction, he said.
"We are just glad that this is getting the attention that it's been due. Obviously, in the line of work we do, rulings like this could affect us in a big way, but we still obviously want these things to happen," Bergstrom said.
The monarch is just one of the most visible species at risk of disappearing as an estimated 1 million plants and animals are threatened with extinction due to rising temperatures, shrinking habitat and other human-driven threats. The loss of pollinators such as butterflies could have profound effects on ecosystems and people who depend on them.
Perhaps no butterfly is more recognizable than the monarch.
Every spring, a kaleidoscope of the orange insects fan out from Mexico across the United States east of the Rockies to pollinate and procreate, a brightly colored signal of a change in season. When temperatures begin to cool, the butterfly flutters back south across the Rio Grande to ride out the winter, where some locals believe its tiny wings carry the souls of ancestors.
For the short-lived insect, the entire migration takes multiple generations, making the delicate animal a powerful symbol of resilience. A smaller western population spends its winters in coastal California.
But increasingly, rising temperatures are upending the journey by tricking them to stay north for too long, according to Rebeca Quiñonez-Piñón, monarch recovery strategist for the National Wildlife Federation.
"The monarchs are getting completely confused," Quiñonez-Piñón said. "For them, it's like a trap. They get trapped in some specific single places when they should be moving south."
For those that do return, illegal logging in Mexico, where some monarch defenders have been killed, is encroaching on its winter resting place.
The agency is proposing to designate the monarch, whose caterpillars eat a plant called milkweed, as one step below endangered. If finalized, the new rule would probably require large landowners to work with Fish and Wildlife before doing any development that would significantly harm the butterfly's habitat.
The government would still allow for a host of other activities, including homeowners' basic yard maintenance, certain routine farming activities, vehicle strikes and small-scale monarch rearing by schools. The agency is also proposing to protect nearly 4,400 acres in California as habitat critical for the western cohort.
"We want to make sure that people are still able to have monarchs in the classroom," Lundh said.
Since its inception, Monarch Research Project has worked to develop "monarch zones" across Eastern Iowa, to help repopulate the butterfly population on private and public land. One way the organization supports monarch populations is by encouraging the public to raise and release butterflies and engage with their educational resources provided by the organization.
If monarchs do receive federal protected status, Bergstrom said he doesn't think it will have an effect on Monarch Reseach's work.
"From what I've read from the Fish and Wildlife Service, it sounds like we'll still be able to utilize the monarch for education purposes, not only Monarch Research Project, but anyone in the country," he said. "I'm glad that's staying; we didn't want to lose that ability."
Insect populations are notoriously difficult to count and are known to fluctuate widely from year to year based on the weather and other conditions. Federal officials determined it is in trouble because the acreage in Mexico with overwintering monarchs has steadily declined.
On its current course, the western monarch has a 99 percent chance of vanishing for good in about the next six decades, according to the federal scientists, after its population dropped by more than 95 percent from over 4.5 million in the 1980s. The eastern population has a 56 to 74 percent chance of extinction over the same period, having dropped by about 80 percent from an estimated 380 million in the mid-1990s.
Yet not every monarch researcher agrees with this grim assessment.
University of Georgia ecologist Andy Davis and his colleagues recently analyzed monarch observations from the North American Butterfly Association's annual butterfly count, finding no sharp overall downturn. Another group of researchers looking at genetic changes found no evidence that either monarchs or milkweed declined over the past 75 years.
Davis worries that listing them under the Endangered Species Act may prompt more people to breed monarchs in large groups, increasing the risk of spreading deadly parasites that harm the butterfly.
"They haven't really shown any decline in the summertime," Davis said. "That is when the monarchs are actually in the United States. That's not a sign of a species that's endangered or even threatened."
The Fish and Wildlife Service took those studies into account, officials said, but determined the best way to assess the health of the population was to look at its overwintering habitat.
"The easiest and most straightforward way to determine the size of the population is naturally to count them when all the butterflies are together," said Lara Drizd, a biologist at the agency.
"When you're measuring by trying to survey essentially the entire country," she added, "there's a lot of noise in that data."
In 2022, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a network that tracks the status of species, determined North America's monarchs are endangered, but decided to upgrade its status to "vulnerable" after being petitioned by Davis.
The Fish and Wildlife Service will be taking feedback on its proposal until March 12 and plans to finalize its decision by the end of 2025. It is unclear what Donald Trump's inauguration as president in January will mean for the new rule. His previous administration tried to water down protections for several endangered species.
Even if the rule is scrapped, there are steps regular people can take to plant more native milkweed to bolster the butterfly's habitat.
"Stabilizing and reversing population trends requires an all-hands approach that not only relies on government protections, but also collaboration among landowners, farmers, conservationists and everyday citizens," said Clay Bolt, the World Wildlife Fund's manager of pollinator conservation.