The butterfly effect: saving the migratory monarchs | Sonia Altizer | TEDxUGA

The migration of monarch butterflies is a captivating story of strength and beauty, but one that may not exist for much longer. Dr. Altizer stresses that it’s up to us to change the practices that threaten this iconic species.

Sonia Altizer, Ph.D., is a Professor and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs in the Odum School of Ecology at the University of Georgia. For the past 20 years, starting as a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, she has traveled the world to study monarch butterfly migration and ecology, and has witnessed first-hand how the numbers of monarchs have dwindled in recent years. Sonia co-edited a book to appear in 2015 titled Monarchs in a Changing World: Biology and Conservation of an Iconic Insect, and participated in high-level task forces dedicated to monarch butterfly conservation. At UGA, her students run a citizen science project called Monarch Health which involves hundreds of volunteers across North America in sampling wild monarchs for a debilitating disease. Sonia’s main research focuses on critters much smaller than butterflies – she studies how pathogens affecting wildlife are shifting in response to human environmental change.

[matthewmcclanahan]

I work with landowners and farmers in NW Iowa, and many are beginning to miss seeing the monarchs and some want to start growing milkweeds and adult feeding areas.  If only we could find ways to help Iowans and other Corn Belt residents to shift their view of milkweeds as "noxious weeds, " as common milkweed is a native species that really has no negative effects other than being a pesky problem in ag fields.  The new pollinator CRP incentive has really taken off, so hopefully we will see more monarchs and other pollinators increasing over the next 10 years.

I wonder what would happen if Americans were all educated as to how much soil and nutrients are lost and translocated from the Midwest and into the Gulf of Mexico through poor farming practices and golf course/urban herbicide applications.  I wonder if we could bring about more positive change in favor of our wildlife and our soil and water if we began to demand more responsibility from farmers and our citizens along with higher farming and urban practice standards so we can reduce our impact on monarchs, our national fisheries, and our economy.  Money is a very powerful driving force, esp. when something like fuel and food are put into the mix.  However, the real power is in the consumers, us, to make positive change.  When we demand products produced by using wise land use, then we may begin to effect real change on a larger scale.  It is the same principle for assisting many of our other imperiled wildlife. 

I always find it very interesting and ironic that the push and enthusiasm for ethanol in the last decade or so has in effect resulted in perhaps somewhat cleaner air but also the loss of millions of acres of wildlife habitat as well as millions (if not billions) of tons of our nation's most fertile soil (through erosion due to poor farming practices).  I wonder what we gave up in the name of "cleaner" fuel, a fuel that actually requires more resource input to produce than a gallon of pure unleaded gasoline.  Less than 10% of the Tallgrass Prairie remains in the Midwest, and most has been replaced by livestock confinements, brome grass fields, and cropfields.  What a terrible loss in the name of money.

Aldo Leopold said it best: "when we view the land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it love and respect."  A man beyond his time--and he grew up farming!There are still tons of opportunities for landowners, farmers, and consumers to speak up and improve things.  I am confident that a lot of it is in the hands of the consumers, for the demand impacts the supply as well as the methods by which the supply is produced.  We also need more support from the public to help increase awareness as well as active support leading to changes in land use.

[vivvcat]

I rescued a monarch today <3 Poor thing only has 4 legs. I had found it lying on the ground on its side, shivering. Butterflies shake their wings rapidly to try and gain more body heat if they're cold, much like humans shivering I've learned. It _was_ pretty cold today after all. Next, I found out it was a female, and I fed it sugar water (soaked in a cotton ball). This was truly a magical experience for me 😅, for I have not gotten this close to a monarch butterfly before. I've only seen a few flying around before.

[andreameigs]

If you build it, (milkweed) they will come. My boss planted a lot of it ten years ago. It took eight years to attract the first one, but each year their numbers have been increasing. Bitter rabbitbrush is a native plant they really like in my area that blooms in the fall and I intend to plant this everywhere in waste areas.