Health & Fitness
Low Monarch Numbers Everywhere
Where are all the butterflies? Like the County Grounds, these large habitat areas are lost to development throughout the United States.
Monarch populations did not fully recover from a slow-to-start spring and now, migrating monarchs have limited resources due to drought throughout many regions. The large portions of the County Grounds have few, if any, nectar plants to draw them in so we do not expect to see large groups of monarchs.
I can, however, say that in 2004 – another bleak year – a group came on Sept. 26 and hung out in their favorite sycamore tree for a couple of days. I believe we will see some monarchs yet, but we must also start thinking about the big picture: We have lost one fifth of their habitat in the United States in just 10 years.
We could potentially lose the migration because of habitat loss and must do everything possible to re-establish places for them to breed, nectar and roost.
