14
Wednesday, August 28, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
A community to
which we belong
My wife, Sue, and I just
returned from an event we
have been a part of for over
five years 4 helping with
the annual butterfly sur-
vey at Lava Beds National
Monument in Northern
California, just south of
Klamath Falls.
In fact, it was Sue who
sparked the interest in keep-
ing track of the butterflies of
Lava Beds. We were regu-
lar visitors there when she
obtained monarch butterfly
tags from the University of
Toronto back in the early
1990s. Our kids were just
the right age to start working
on butterflies, and that long-
legged eldest son of ours,
Reuben, could outrun and net
the fastest butterfly on the
monument.
In those days, Lava Beds
was THE place to visit to see
monarchs. The native narrow
leaf milkweed on the monu-
ment and adjacent U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service refuge
was/is the perfect food source
for the monarch caterpillars,
and native wildflowers for
nectaring were very abun-
dant. Most winters delivered
plenty of water in the form
of snow, and in summer,
thunderstorms added their
moisture.
Years later a lightning
storm hit the monument
resulting in a wildfire that
destroyed much of the mon-
arch breeding habitat. It took
several years for the milk-
weed to regenerate. In spite
of the recovery, many of the
plants with larvae on them
along the monument roads
were being mowed down for
<weed removal.=
That led the butterfly
people to plead with the road
maintenance crew to stop
mowing alongside the pave-
ment. The summer rain runoff
from the pavement was sup-
plying the needed moisture
for the milkweed that mon-
archs were utilizing to raise
new butterflies.
However, even with the
cooperation of the road main-
tenance crew to raise the
sickle bar and leave the milk-
weed alone, the monarchs did
not recover their numbers like
they were in the old days.
Just this year, after find-
ing no monarchs on the
monument during the annual
survey, I hit the panic
button; <Houston, we have a
problem!=
Thank goodness, a friend
who is an exceptional ento-
mologist, and once a member
of the Xerces Society staff
(an invertebrate conserva-
tion organization), was on the
survey. She opened the door
that provided what I believe
is the answer to why no mon-
archs at Lava Beds this year,
and why the population never
regained its numbers after the
wildfire of summer 2008: the
monarch breeding habitat in
coastal and central California
is going downhill and the
native milkweed is dying off,
halting the monarchs from
producing butterflies to con-
tinue their northern migration
in spring.
Monarchs9 annual migra-
tion is a widely known phe-
nomenon 4 particularly the
eastern populations that fly
to Mexico and back north to
Canada. In the western U.S.,
over one million monarchs
from Arizona to Washington
and north into British
Columbia fly to more than
two hundred groves along the
California coast each fall.
These butterflies mate,
then leave their overwin-
tering sites in spring, and
fly eastward to California9s
Central Valley, the Sierra
Nevada foothills and north
to Oregon, Washington, and
British Columbia in search
of milkweed on which to lay
their eggs.
However, past and recent
annual counts of over-
wintering monarchs on
the California coast have
revealed significant popula-
tion declines. For example, in
1997, Natural Bridges State
Beach near Santa Cruz had an
estimated 120,000 monarchs.
In 2009, only 1,300 butter-
flies overwintered. This past
season showed an alarming
loss of 95 percent of overwin-
tering California monarchs.
This loss is reportedly
due to urban and agricul-
tural development and the
application of herbicides
in croplands, pastures, and
roadsides. The protection and
restoration of native plant
communities in these areas is
critical to reversing this trend.
We must place stronger
controls on the use of herbi-
cides, especially those neo-
nicotinoids that are so deadly
to every living invertebrate.
Also set aside all the native
milkweed locations as mon-
arch conservation areas and
make sure there9s enough
water allocated to their
survival.
As an example, the State
of Iowa has begun the Iowa
Monarch Conservation
Strategy, which seeks to
establish approximately
480,00 to 830,000 acres of
monarch habitat by 2038.
Their habitat goals were
released on March 12, 2018
by the Mid-America Monarch
Conservation Strategy which
is made up of a group of 40
conservation organizations.
If successful, Iowa9s strategy
estimates 127 to 188 million
new milkweed plants will be
established throughout the
state in the next 10 years.
Here in Central Oregon,
many people, schools and
groups have created monarch
waystations that have solid
plantings of milkweed and
native wildflowers for nec-
taring. Watching how these
conservation areas operate
has shown positive proof that
monarchs are prospering in
their use. But with very few
monarchs getting past Central
California9s empty milkweed
patches our waystations will
have few respondents to their
invitation.
One of the heroes of my
childhood and still very
important to my philosophy
of living on this beautiful
planet, Earth 4 our home
away from home 4 is Aldo
Leopold, the man who advo-
cated protecting the land all
PHOTO BY JIM ANDERSON
Monarch butterflies migrating through Lava Beds National Monument.
his professional life.
His book, <A Sand County
Almanac,= opened up the
world to me and got me
to thinking far beyond my
wife9s kitchen garden and
my honeybees. Water for life
became so important to me I
began to look at weather and
water resources more deeply.
Leopold reminded us of
what ecosystem diversity is
all about when he said: <A
thing is right when it tends to
preserve the integrity, stabil-
ity and beauty of the biotic
community. It is wrong when
it tends otherwise.=
And, to me, most impor-
tant of all, he said: <We abuse
land because we see it as a
commodity belonging to us.
When we see land as a com-
munity to which we belong,
we may begin to use it with
love and respect.=
It is way past time to start
doing that.
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