Where are all the monarchs this year?

[forsythia]

We have a thriving Joe Pye weed in our back yard, which is now at its prime. It's about 6 feet tall, and ten feet across. In other years, the bush has been covered with butterflies, many of them monarchs. We've seen very few butterflies this year. We live in a suburb of Washington, DC. We have a chemical-free yard. What could be wrong?

[Mona Miller]

Numbers in some areas are way down this year. The habitat is there, but the butterfly is not. I was lucky to have a female visit which I collected eggs from and then began breeding. I have been releasing these offspring at home in Herndon, VA and also in Vienna at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens. There are loads of Monarchs at both these locations.

Reports indicate this is due to two cold springs and gypsy moth and mosquitoe spraying.

[ilanpro]

Hi, this is probably why the monarchs are not being seen a lot i think its probably because the weather .
its either being to hot for them to fly or because its raining in june and july when they were suppost to be out and another reason is that people are cutting down milkweeds

[Mona Miller]

Pesticides (kills insects), herbicides (kills plants), habitat destruction (you should see all the big buildings and subdivisions in my area--once were fields with nectar and host plants).

[Paul Cherubini]

Here's an example of why it can be wrong to assume pesticides are doing great harm to butterflies and other pollinators:

Three days ago I was driving around south-central Minnesota and saw a crop duster spraying and soybean field including the crop margin where wildflowers were growing.
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87 ... raya-1.jpg

30 minutes after the spraying I went to check the wildflowers and I saw there were still beetles, bumblebees and butterflies nectaring on the flowers:
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87 ... rayb-1.jpg
http://i636.photobucket.com/albums/uu87/4ALC/sprayd.jpg

So the spray (presumably a soybean fungicide or insecticide) had not done any noticable harm.

[Mona Miller]

http://butterflybreeders.org/public/adv ... r-Not-2940
"He has been employed as a technical representative for chemical companies in California."

Is this part of your job to try to convince people that chemicals don't hurt wildlife?

[Monarch MaMa]

Note to Paul - did you see any larva? Caterpillars? larval ladybugs, larval lacewings? Although those adult insects were feeding from the flowers, if they ingested pesticides from that flower's nectar site wouldn't you expect said pesticide to kill them shortly afterward? I suppose the only way to know would be to net/catch some and hold them for 24 hours so see if they exhibited normal behavior. Unfortunately we can only speculate on what chemical mix was being applied. It may be just a fungicide as you stated.

I believe that my massive monarch caterpillar kill last month was due to my husband's herbicide-spraying next to our home. In 40 years, I've never lost 98% of my cats in 24 hours like this. Ever. He was NOT using a pesticide, but an herbicide for dandelions, etc. He was sorry about the results and I just don't understand his drive for a 'perfect' lawn - it's not important to me as living butterflies are. And bees. And earthworms, etc...

[summerluver]

I feel the same way. I've watched my tomato, zuccinni, and cucumber plants fall hopelessly into piles of wilted, sick dead leaves due to the fungus and bacterial problems we're having due to the weather here this year. I don't even want to use the organic methods of fungicides because I'm so afraid it will hurt my beneficial insects. I'm actually seeing a few honey bees again this year. Yipee!

[texas butterfly]

I'm seeing lots fewer bees this year too.

I'm still getting bumble bees. Honey bees are scarce.

[summerluver]

They've started migrating to Mexico this week and are passing through, and it's really nice to see butterflies on my butterfly bushes almost all day. Great Spangled Frittaries are daily visitors too. They're all so beautiful!!