WXMI — The decline of the beloved monarch butterfly population has been going on for some time, and ecologist Mark Hunter has had a front row seat to it all.
“I work up in northern Michigan and up here I had a few years where we didn’t count any at all,” he said during a Zoom interview with Fox 17 on Thursday. “When I first started, we would count dozens and dozens of them very easily. And, it got harder and harder and recently it’s been really quite difficult to find monarchs.”
Hunter, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, is not the only one experiencing this.
Thursday, national scientists added monarchs to the endangered species list stating that their populations have declined 20-70-percent in certain parts of North America over the last decade.
“We’ve seen really huge declines in the Western U.S.,” Hunter said. “But, even here in Michigan I should say we’ve probably had, during the time that I’ve been working on them, certainly a 75-percent decline in the place where I work.”
Hunter’s been studying butterflies for 20 years and has spent the last 15 at the school’s biology station up near Paxton, Michigan.
He said their decline impacts the local economy.
“If you eat fruits and vegetables that’s $50 billion per year in the United States or $2 billion a year just in Michigan,” Hunter said. “So, as the pollinators decline, including monarch butterflies, it puts a real pressure on our ability to grow fruit and vegetable crops. It’s a serious business.”
He said pollination is essential to growing crops, including soybeans. During his research over the years, he’s noticed that not only was there a decline in monarchs but also a 50-percent decline in other insect populations too, and it’s due a number of factors.
“If it’s just habitat loss or it’s just climate change or it’s just disease you know we could focus all of our attention there. But, just like the bees, monarchs are exactly the same. It’s all of those things all operating,” Hunter said. “With the monarch they have the bigger problem because they migrate. They can actually face challenges, different challenges at different places depending on where they are in their journey.”
One way to reverse the downward trend, he said, is to plant more milkweed. It’s what the monarch butterflies and other pollinators feast on.
“Find out what species of milkweed should grow locally,” Hunter added. “Don’t buy milkweeds from somewhere else, buy Michigan milkweeds. Not only Michigan, but if you live in northern Michigan buy milkweeds from there.”
He said that people can plant them in their yards or gardens to create a butterfly habitat for them. It’s what the Grand Rapids Parks and Recreation is doing at Briggs Park this fall. They’re opening a butterfly garden that supports pollination.
“There’s certainly hope,” Hunter said about saving the species. “I’m an optimist. I believe we can do anything we put our minds to. I think we can certainly help the monarch and reestablish populations. We can plant milkweed and we can be a bit more careful about how we manage our environment.”
