Crop herbicides play a role in shrinking monarch population
Crop herbicides play a role in shrinking monarch population
By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH, Associated Press | February 28, 2015 | Updated: February 28, 2015 3:28pm
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A butterfly being considered for federal protection is emblematic of the plight that pollinating insects face in part because farmers, enticed by ethanol mandates, are growing more herbicide-resistant crops, which has stripped millions of acres of crucial plant habitat.
Herbicide makers say they're committed to helping the black-and-orange insects, whose numbers have plummeted by more than 90 percent in the past two decades. And environmentalists seeking protection for monarchs under the Endangered Species Act said restoring milkweed habitat would help other pollinating insects, too, such as honey bees, whose numbers of managed colonies have dropped by more than 4 million beehives since 1947.
"My feeling is if the monarch goes, it is like the canary in the coalmine," ecologist Lincoln Brower with Sweet Briar College in Virginia said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is taking comments and data about monarchs through March 2, and a decision on whether to list the monarch as threatened is due in December. Although a plan for helping the monarch wouldn't be developed unless it gains "threatened" status, the solution needs to address herbicides as well as mowing public roadsides less frequently, Brower said.
Some monarch populations migrate thousands of miles from breeding and wintering grounds, but along the route, there is less of the milkweed they depend upon to nourish them and on which they lay their eggs, a loss caused by more corn and soybeans, logging, construction and a drought that peaked in 2012.
More:
http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Crop-herbicides-play-a-role-in-shrinking-monarch-6107474.php
= new reply since forum marked as read
