A decision is near on whether the monarch butterfly, an iconic and beloved pollinator that migrates through the Great Lakes region each year, warrants listing as an endangered species in the U.S. as its population counts dwindle due to habitat loss.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is expected to decide next week whether to extend federal protection under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to the butterfly after conservation groups petitioned for listing in 2014 and sued in 2016 to accelerate the process.

The agency’s deadline is Dec. 15 to submit a finding that protection through a threatened or endangered species designation is warranted or not.

Should protection be warranted, the agency would begin a rule-making process involving public comment and hearings. A listing would make it illegal to kill, harm or harass a monarch butterfly and likely restrict the destruction of certain plants.

“We’ve been doing a lot of work gathering information and looking at the butterfly’s status,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokeswoman Georgia Parham. “We’re coming to the end of that process now.”

The monarch butterfly, with its distinctive orange and black wings, is one of the most recognizable species in North America. Wildlife advocates say both the eastern and western U.S. populations are declining as habitat dwindles.

Rebeca Quinonez-Pinon, monarch outreach program coordinator at the National Wildlife Federation, said monarch populations have been declining since the 1990s. Urbanization, pesticide use and conversation of native grassland to cropland have all taken their toll, she said.

“Pesticides are definitely not good for them,” she said.

In March, the Center for Biological Diversity said the annual count of monarchs overwintering in Mexico decreased by 53 percent from the year prior, an alarming drop that’s stoked worries about a migratory population collapse.

Most North American monarchs migrate each winter to oyamel fir tree forests on 12 mountaintops in central Mexico. Scientists estimate population by measuring the area of trees turned orange by clustered butterflies. Monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains overwinter on the California coast, where the Center for Biological Diversity says population counts have fallen to below 30,000 from 1.2 million two decades ago.

The center pointed to the threat of global climate change as likely to further disrupt monarch migrations and eventually render winter habitats unsuitable.

Center for Biological Diversity, which was among several that petitioned FWS to list the monarch as endangered, says an estimated 165 million acres of breeding habitat has been lost in the U.S. due to herbicide spraying and development that’s reduced the prevalence of milkweed.

“Monarchs cannot reproduce without milkweed,” said Dan Kennedy, acting wildlife division chief at the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

“That’s where they lay their eggs and caterpillars grow and metamorphosize into adult butterflies.”

The butterflies also need a nectar source, such as wildflowers, when they arrive in the U.S. and Canada.

“A lot of that ends up being grassland habitats,” he said.

Kennedy said questions around managing milkweed and grassland habitat is “where it gets tricky” in the conversation around protecting monarch butterflies.

A federal listing would trigger protection for monarch under Michigan’s endangered species law, but Kennedy said the legislature would need to act to update the state list.

Kennedy said Michigan and several other states have embarked on habitat conservation efforts over the past few years to increase milkweed numbers and promote grassland preservation through voluntary incentive programs aimed at farmers and other large land owners.

To read more of the original story and see related environmental reporting, follow this link to the mlive.com website.  https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2020/12/monarch-butterfly-endangered-decision-nears-as-numbers...