Monarch butterflies' countdown to extinction
Trump administration puts off decision on endangered species, intends to keep counting dwindling numbers
A monarch butterfly shares a thistle with a soldier beetle at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle. (Wikimedia Commons/Bruce Marlin)
By Ted Cox
The Trump administration has determined that extending protection to monarch butterflies as an endangered species is “warranted but precluded” — another way of saying that it deserves to happen, but won’t under President Trump.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently determined that it would not be adding monarch butterflies to the endangered-species list, even as it granted that such a ruling was “warranted but precluded.” The national agency basically said that monarchs met the standards for an endangered species, but others were even more endangered, requiring immediate action. The agency said it would continue counting monarchs, even as their numbers dwindle, and would update the ruling annually, although the butterflies would not be added until 2024 at the earliest.
It’s nothing new for the Trump administration. It put off a decision on pronouncing monarchs endangered last year, saying it would reach a determination after the election. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service didn’t even do that with its declaration that protection was “warranted but precluded.”
The American Farm Bureau Federation applauded that move. FarmWeek Now quoted federation President Zippy Duvall last week as saying: “America’s farmers welcome the U.S. Fish and Wildlife decision to continue monitoring the health of the monarch butterfly population. The ‘warranted but precluded’ decision will give all stakeholders time to continue conservation and research efforts.”
But farmers have resisted the protection measures that would accompany monarchs being added to the list under the Endangered Species Act, even as the Illinois Farm Bureau has touted its participation in the Illinois Monarch Project and its proposed 20-year action plan to revive the species through initiatives such as planting milkweed — key to the butterflies’ feeding, breeding, and migration — as well as letting fallow farmland go unmowed to better sustain pollinators.
The Chicago Sun-Times ran an editorial a week ago calling for monarchs to be protected. It quoted Iris Caldwell of the University of Illinois at Chicago, state coordinator of the Illinois Monarch Project, as saying, “There’s still a lot of need to provide habitat and address the threats facing monarchs.”
According to the editorial: “The population of western monarch butterflies, most of which are in California, plummeted this year to just an estimated 2,000, down from some 30,000 in 2019 and 1.2 million in 1997. Eastern monarchs, a larger group that includes those in Illinois, have declined from about 384 million in 1996 to 14 million in 2013. A year later, environmentalists first petitioned the federal government to list monarchs as endangered.” The editorial added that latest figures show the eastern monarchs have rebounded to an estimated population of 60 million, but that’s still well below the numbers of just 25 years ago.
“It really is a simple concept,” the editorial stated. “A species that meets the criteria belongs on the federal endangered-species list.” It cited how the Trump administration “has added only 25 species to the endangered list, fewer than any since the act took effect in 1973. The administration also has weakened protections for endangered and threatened species, including limiting consideration of the impact of climate change when evaluating whether animals should be listed.”
The Sun-Times concluded: “For the sake of protecting and enhancing our planet’s biodiversity, that’s got to change under the Biden administration.”