Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy

Let’s do our part here in Loudoun to Bring Back the Monarchs!

I’ll be doing my monthly blog post on the state of the Monarch Butterfly population shortly but this is pretty urgent so I wanted to share the report below with you from Monarch Watch and ask that you jump on in and plant some milkweed as well as nectar plants in your garden this spring! You can also certify your garden as a Monarch Waystation though Monarch Watch and be recognized as being a part of this important effort! 

You can purchase milkweed seeds through online companies like Prairie Nursery (that’s where we buy our seeds for the waystation kits we put together) and you can also ask local nurseries to order and stock milkweed plants. Prairie Moon, another company that sells plants/seeds, is also having a sale right now on some of their Butterfly Weed milkweed plants.

Milkweed plants that are great for our local area include: Swamp Milkweed, Common Milkweed, Butterflyweed

Nectar plants that you should also plant as part of your waystation include: Ironweed, Sweet Joe Pye Weed, Purple Coneflower, Blackeyed Susan, Goldenrod, New England Aster

Loudoun Wildlife Conservancy will have Monarch Waystation seed kits at our fair booth at the Leesburg Garden Festival, Earthday@Loudoun, Arbor Day and other events in April. Check our programs calendar for details. I’m also doing a program on Monarch butterflies in June in the Ashburn area and it’s free and open to the public – Waystation kits will also be available at the program.

The number of Monarchs this year was already low before the devastating weather events set in. With only half of the remaining population still alive, our monarch waystations are more critical than ever in helping bring back the monarch!

The rest of this blog post provides the report from Monarch Watch:

Storms in Mexico
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There has been a disaster of extraordinary proportions in the heart of the monarch overwintering area. Unprecedented rainfall from 31 January – 4 February led to flooding and landslides that resulted in the loss of many lives and the near destruction of the towns of Angangueo and Ocampo, the two municipalities that serve as hubs for those visiting the monarch colonies at Sierra Chincua and El Rosario.

The community of El Rosario was also hit hard with a major landslide that buried more than a dozen residents and destroyed bridges and homes. The consequences of this disaster will be felt for years by some and for a lifetime by others. Angangueo will never be the same – the one we remember before the flooding is gone.

The monarch colonies were also strongly impacted by the rainfall but the monarch population will recover – how long this recovery will take is a question that can’t be answered at this time.

We have posted a series of articles about the storms in Mexico, the status of the monarch population, etc. via our blog:

http://monarchwatch.org/blog/category/mexico/

A few quick facts:
1) An unprecedented amount of rainfall in eastern Michoacan in the first four days of February led to landslides and massive flooding in Angangueo and the surrounding area. About 50 people lost their lives in landslides and Angangueo was severely damaged. The story of the storm and the aftermath are extensively chronicled on our Blog.

2) A series of storms in January and February have taken a toll on the monarch population. The final estimate on the mortality suffered by the monarchs is not yet in but it is clear that over 50% of the overwintering population died as a result the harsh winter conditions.

3) Because of the severe mortality at the overwintering colonies, the number of monarchs returning to the breeding areas this spring will be fewer than at anytime since the colonies became known to science in 1975. These numbers are so low that they are certain to impact the number of monarchs that return to Mexico next fall.

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Bring Back the Monarch Campaign
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In response to mortality suffered by the monarchs in Mexico we will be launching a “Bring Back the Monarch”campaign by encouraging a nationwide expansion of the Monarch Waystation Program and the planting of milkweed on private and public lands. This effort will be supported in part by the Monarch Joint Venture, a new nationwide program whose mission is to foster monarch conservation. We will post more information about these efforts in the coming months, in the meantime you can learn more about our Monarch Waystation conservation initiative at

http://monarchwatch.org/waystations

Earth Hour is an annual event (although you can certainly do your own earth hour at any time during the year) where we turn off all our lights and other electronic devices for sixty minutes as a show of our concern over climate change.

Earth Hour was started in 2007 by the World Wildlife Fund in Sydney Australia when 2.2 million people turned out all non-essential lights. In 2008, millions of people in 400 cities participated and its grown from there….

Last year, hundreds of millions of people across 88 countries in 4,000 cities world wide participated in turning off their lights! Power demands saw noticeable dips, demonstrating further the power of the people when we want to do something.

Let’s make a statement again this year and lets make it even louder! Turn out your lights and other non-essential electronics for an hour, from 9:00-10:00pm and talk it up to your friends and neighbors too. Sixty minutes really isn’t all that long. 

Take the kids outside on a nature walk and drink in the night sounds. I bet you’ll hear some birds calling, perhaps an owl or two, maybe you’ll encounter some frogs or toads hopping through the yard, and you no doubt will spook some deer or raccoons on their evening routes, wondering what the heck you’re doing outside!  Enjoy the darkness!