10 Ways You Can Help Save Monarch Butterflies!
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1. Plant Native Milkweed
2. Create a Monarch Way-Station 3. Become Involved in Community Science Groups 4. Don't Use Pesticides and Insecticides 5. Avoid Eating GMO Foods 6. Use FSC-Certified Wood 7. Do Your Part to Combat Climate Change 8. Educate Yourself 9. Donate to help organizations that protect monarchs 10. Spread the Word! |
1. Plant Milkweed Native to Your Area
2. Create a Monarch Way-Station
- We can’t stress this one highly enough. The monarchs in your region will need to eat indigenous milkweed plants, so find out which ones are native to your area, and plant away. Then plant some more. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can even do a bit of milkweed guerilla gardening and plant seeds or seedlings in unused, vacant areas as well as your own yard.
2. Create a Monarch Way-Station
- Let a part of your yard get overgrown, and fill it with milkweed plants. Set out a butterfly-safe watering dish where the little ones can stop to drink, and you’ll ensure that they have a safe place to stop, rest, and regroup during their migration.
- Native flowers provide food for adult butterflies. A combination of early, middle and late blooming species, with overlap in flowering times, will fuel butterfly breeding and migration and provide beautiful blooms season-long.
3. Become Involved with Community Science Groups
- To understand the monarch migration, we rely on the help of community scientists (also called citizen scientists) to collect data during all phases of the annual life cycle of monarch breeding, migrating, and overwintering.
- Help tag and track monarchs; monitor eggs, larvae, and natural enemies; count milkweed stems, record blooming plants; sample monarchs for parasite and record the data; track rainfall; estimate monarch survival from through rearing.
4. Avoid Pesticides and Insecticides (including neonicotinoids)!
- Try using natural ways to deal with insects such as have a bunch of praying mantis and lady bugs to put into your yard.
- The US and Canada have many agricultural areas that routinely spray pesticides on their crops to protect them. This is an ever evolving and complex issue to protect crops and yet allow “good” insects to survive.
- Pesticides kill many types of insect larvae, including monarch butterfly, and they often contain a herbicide called glyphosate, which destroys milkweed. Milkweed is the only plant that monarch butterflies lay their eggs AND are the only food eaten by the monarch butterfly larvae.
- Insecticides are designed to kill insects and should never be used in or surrounding pollinator habitat. Limit use of herbicides within and surrounding the habitat only to control invasive or noxious weeds.
- Everyday consumers can have an impact on if they know what to look for and spend the time to be careful on what plants they purchase and what they use to treat their lawns and gardens with. Friends of the Earth published Gardeners Beware 2014, which reported that many big box stores, including Home Depot, Lowes and Walmart sold plants that are said to be bee-friendly but have been treated with neonicotinoids (which can persist in soil and plants for up to SIX YEARS in woody plants!) at nurseries where these plants were grown. This group of insecticides have a long-lasting residual both throughout all parts of the plants, including flowers, pollen and nectar, and which can negatively impact butterflies. Home Depot now puts on the tags of the plants that it sells if it contains neonics (“The Perilous Migration”, 2015). Individual consumers can avoid plants that have been treated with neonics, communities can potentially enact laws to prevent the selling of pollinator-friendly plants that are not truly pollinator friendly.
5. Avoid Eating GMO Foods
6. Use FSC-Certified Wood
7. Do Your Part to Combat Climate Change
8. Educate Yourself
9.Donate to Organizations That are Dedicated to Helping the Monarch Butterfly
10. Spread the Word!
- Many GMO foods are resistant to glyphosate, so farmers have to use significantly more pesticides and herbicides to kill weeds… which then kills nearby milkweed.
6. Use FSC-Certified Wood
- Illegal logging has destroyed many of the Monarch habitats in Mexico. Buying Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified wood helps to protect forests, including the areas where monarch butterflies overwinter in Mexico, ensuring that the monarchs have a habitat to return to.
7. Do Your Part to Combat Climate Change
- Drive less, reduce the waste you create, ensure that your home is as energy-efficient as possible, buy organic. Every little bit of effort helps to reduce our impact on the climate.
8. Educate Yourself
- Learn as much as you can about local dangers to monarch habitats, and determine what kind of action would be best for you to take. Try planting in containers on a balcony if you don’t have land of your own. You could look into the possibility of volunteering at a community garden space or bring apart of a butterfly conservation group in your area. Even if you’re not interested in taking a hands-on approach to helping, you can at least learn how to do as little harm to the butterflies as possible.
9.Donate to Organizations That are Dedicated to Helping the Monarch Butterfly
- There are several organizations that are helping to make strides in protecting and preserving our monarch butterflies and could use your financial help. Check some of them out by clicking on their names: Utah Friends of Monarch, Monarch Joint Venture, Southwest Monarch Study, Western Monarch Advocates, Utah Monarch Conservation
10. Spread the Word!
- Tell others about the monarch’s plight, and encourage them to take these steps. Share educational materials with friends, family members and co-workers, strike up conversations with random folks at garden centers, join a Facebook page, etc. Every piece to help does.