Monarch Update: ENDANGERED SPECIES: Coalition urges Obama admin to list monarch butterflies as threatened Thursday, November 13, 2014 Dozens of scientists, conservationists and corporations asked the Obama administration today to extend Endangered Species Act protections to the monarch butterfly. In a pair of letters to Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe and FWS endangered species program listing chief Douglas Krofta, 41 scientists and 220 environmental groups and businesses expressed support for a recent legal petition to have the butterfly listed as threatened (Greenwire, Aug. 26). Signatories included leading monarch scientists as well as the Sierra Club, the National Audubon Society and organic food producer Clif Bar & Co. The Endangered Species Act is the most effective tool available for spurring the large-scale effort thats needed to protect the amazing monarch butterfly from extinction, Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a news release. CBD, along with the Center for Food Safety and the Xerces Society, petitioned FWS in August to list monarchs. Jewell, however, may favor a different approach to helping the butterflies. In a speech at a Sydney conservation forum today, the Interior secretary acknowledged we have seen dramatic drops in the population of the monarch butterfly. But she touted the cooperative arrangement between the countries of Canada, the United States and Mexico (Greenwire, Feb. 20) as an example of how international environmental protection efforts should work. Monarchs migrate among the countries every three years, she noted. We need to work collectively across these artificial political boundaries to support the species that we depend on much more than we know, Jewell told attendees of the World Parks Congress during a broader address about climate change and a major U.S.-Kiribati agreement on Pacific conservation (Greenwire, Nov. 13). The North American monarch butterfly population has plunged 90 percent in the past 20 years, from a high of about 1 billion in the mid-1990s to fewer than 35 million butterflies last winter -- the lowest number on record (Greenwire, Jan. 30). Increased use of the herbicide glyphosate on genetically engineered crops and the corresponding loss of milkweed, butterflies primary food source, is thought to be the most significant contributor to the monarchs population decline, the scientists wrote in their letter to Obama administration officials. Other contributing factors may include climate change, severe weather events, logging in the overwintering habitat, wide spread use of systemic insecticides, disease, and predation, they wrote. U.S. EPA recently approved the use of Enlist Duo, a glyphosate-containing herbicide manufactured by Dow AgroSciences LLC. That decision is being challenged by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group (Greenwire, Oct. 16).
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 14:13:20 +0000
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