The Mighty Monarch

The Monarch butterfly is a small but resilient creature. They are the most recognisable and well-studied butterflies, famous for their remarkable seasonal migration from Canada and the United States to California and Mexico.  

Monarchs are specially equipped to make the long journey south. they use the sun to chart their course but also have a magnetic compass that helps them stay on course on days when the sun isn’t shining. They also have a special gene that increases muscular endurance and efficiency, enabling them to complete long-distance flight, some travelling even up to 3000 km. 

 The once thriving population of western monarchs faces the looming threat of extinction as they feel the effects of pesticide use, land development and climate change. Populations once described as breaking the branches of the trees they rested on have now dwindled down by more than 80% of what they were in the mid 1990s. What was once a symbol of summer has become a rare sight.  

The story of the monarch butterfly isn’t over but rather it continues as testament to the power and effectiveness of conservation efforts. The plight of monarch butterflies has generated public passion and captured the attention of citizens and politicians across the globe. There has been joint conservation commitment between Canada, the United States and Mexico to protect the monarch population, including the establishment of a high-level task force for conserving the monarchs’ migratory path as well as the creation of hundreds of pollinator patches, meant to guide monarchs and sustain them as increasing use of agricultural pesticides affect their food supply. 

The conservation efforts have helped increase the monarch butterfly population, with the area occupied by overwintering monarchs increasing by 144% between 2018 and 2019.