MINOT, N.D. (AP) - Dr. Logan Wood, veterinarian at Roosevelt Park Zoo in Minot, always looks for monarch caterpillars feeding on milkweed when he goes fishing or walks his dog.
Is it unusual to find a monarch?
“In my opinion, it’s unusual,” said Wood. “I walk through fields hoping to find one caterpillar and I have not found one all year, maybe because I’m missing them but at the same time I feel that we don’t nearly see the amount that we should, and I think that’s due to everything that’s leading to these animals being put on the endangered species list,” he said.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide in December if the North American monarch butterfly will be classified as a federally endangered species, Wood told the Minot Daily News.
Initially, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was to determine last year whether the monarch butterfly should be listed as an endangered species but the deadline was extended to December of this year so agency biologists and other organizations could continue to collect information on the monarch’s status, according to North Dakota Game and Fish Department.
If classified as a federally endangered species, this will be a first for the monarch butterfly. The butterfly has never been placed on that list before, Wood said.
The monarch is considered the most recognizable of all butterflies in North America.
North Dakota has monarch butterflies and the milkweed that the monarch caterpillars exclusively feed on.
But the monarch population has decreased extensively over the past 20 years and the milkweed isn’t as abundant anymore.
Last year Wood raised monarch butterflies as a special project at the zoo. The project culminated with a “Flutter Fest” held at the zoo, attended by over 2,300 people. Tagged monarchs (tiny lightweight stickers placed on butterflies) were released. Due to COVID-19, the project was put on hold this year because a large event could not be held for the release of the monarchs.
North America has two different types of monarchs, Wood said.
“There’s the Pacific monarch and there’s the Eastern monarch. We have the Eastern. The Eastern is anything east of the Rocky Mountains. All of ours from pretty much North Dakota all the way up to New York and even into Canada go down to Mexico. Sometimes they’ll migrate all the way there. Other times, depending on the season, they fly down to say Oklahoma, lay their eggs and their offspring make it to Mexico. However, there are reports about tagged monarchs that have made that trip to Mexico and back, which is over 1,800 miles in those cases,” Wood said.
One of the reasons the monarchs are special, Wood said, is the phenomena of millions and millions of these butterflies congregating.
“When this happens they hang upside down from trees, completely covering forests and trees. That’s what is amazing about this phenomenon,” he said.
The Eastern monarch congregates in Mexico and the Pacific monarch congregates in Monterey, Calif.
Eastern monarchs will travel as far south as central Mexico and overwinter for approximately six to nine months.
After winter the monarchs return north to the states, Wood said. He said many of the adult monarchs can live a little over a year to 18 months, depending on replenishing their energy supplies as well as surviving birds and other predators.
Wood said the life cycle of the monarch starts with the butterfly laying eggs on a leaf. Those hatch into tiny caterpillars.
“They’re maybe half a centimeter in length – very, very tiny when they first come out. They grow very, very rapidly,” he said.
He said they’re usually a caterpillar for about 10-14 days.
“From that time they grow from being just a few millimeters to being over 3 inches long. They grow very, very fast – it’s almost overnight they can double,” he said.
“As they get to be about 3 inches long, then what they do is they go into their pupa stage – it’s called the chrysalis. Within that chrysalis they go through a metamorphosis and that typically takes another 10-14 days. They might be underneath a leaf or they may go to a sturdy branch. When we were growing them here at the zoo we put a stick – something that’s a little sturdier in hoping that they would go there. Every now and then they would go on the bottom of a leaf in which we’d then tie the leaf onto the stick,” he said.
“It initially starts off as a green – jade green – chrysalis. As the butterfly starts to form you can actually see the orange and black coloration. Once they’re fully developed, then they’ll just open up the chrysalis. They’re really soft in their wings when they first come out – kind of folded around, kind of like swaddling a baby. They’ll hang upside down for a little while to allow everything to drain and to fully harden up as far as wings,” Wood said.
“In December of 2020, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife plans to hold a meeting to talk about whether or not to place the North American monarchs on the endangered species list. That’s what is important about trying to save this animal is we’ve seen anywhere from 70 percent to 80 percent population decrease in monarchs,” Wood said.
He said there’s a few different reasons for the decrease in monarchs, including the overuse of herbicides and pesticides, but habitat loss is probably the No. 1 reason along with their overwintering location.
“A lot of people are tearing down the forest that they (monarchs) use in order to create grazing land,” Wood said.
Need for milkweed
When the monarch is a caterpillar, he said, it needs the milkweed. But, he said, many people do not like milkweed because it has weed in its name.
North Dakota has several species of milkweed, according to Wood.
“The common milkweed is what we see here, which has the big, giant pods – that’s the fruit of the plant. The other one would be the swamp milkweed,” he said.
What can be done to help save and protect monarchs?
“There are lots of things that you can do,” Wood said. “You can leave the milkweed. It is a weed; however, it is a crucial part to the butterfly life cycle. Those who might want to help the monarchs but don’t want many milkweed plants in their yard or garden might want to leave one of them for the monarchs.
“Caterpillars cannot live on anything but milkweed and that’s what allows them to become that toxic animal or poisonous animal in case another animal were to try to get them. They need the milkweed in order to grow and to become an adult butterfly,” he said. “You can control it (milkweed) but it is nice to be able to at least to have a plant for the butterflies to come back.
“Adult butterflies just need nectar so they may be feeding off the milkweed flowers themselves or any sort of nectar or pollinator plant,” he said. He said there’s a list of native nectar-rich plants not only good for monarchs but good for all pollinators, including honey bees and other butterflies such as the swallowtails and even hummingbirds.
Roosevelt Park Zoo has a registered Monarch Waystation as part of its Pollinator Garden on the North Trail.
“We have at least two different types of milkweed in that Pollinator Garden plus a lot of native pollinator plants,” Wood said. He said the waystation is a place where the monarchs can replenish themselves during their migration.
“There’s less than 20 waystations in North Dakota and we have one of them. We’re hoping to create more waystations throughout the park district. Our Horticulture Department has been great in supporting us with that effort,” he said.
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For more information about monarchs and milkweed visit Monarch Watch at www.monarchwatch.org or Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation at www.xerces.org.
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