Check out Karen Wright’s July 28th “Everyday is Earth Day” podcast about Monarchs featuring Wendy Caldwell of Monarch Joint Venture.
Click this Read More to listen to the podcast.
The monarch has been declared endangered (not extinct) by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a global advocacy organization that monitors biological diversity.
The monarch has not yet been recognized as endangered by the federal government’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This is the statement on their website:
In December 2020, after an extensive status assessment of the monarch butterfly, we determined that listing the monarch under the Endangered Species Act is warranted but precluded at this time by higher priority listing actions. With this finding, the monarch butterfly becomes a candidate for listing; we will review its status each year until we are able to begin developing a proposal to list the monarch.
Is the monarch federally protected now?
No. Our 12-month finding does not protect monarchs under the ESA at this time. We first must propose the monarch for listing as either an endangered or threatened species, gather and analyze public comments and any new information, and using the best available science, make a final decision and publish a final rule. That process is deferred while we work on higher-priority listing actions.
Our Information for Planning and Consultation (IPaC) project planning tool identifies the monarch as a candidate species, and project developers, particularly federal agencies, may choose to voluntarily add conservation actions to conserve monarchs to their projects.
Experts on the monarch, including Karen Oberhauser and the Xerces Society, along with the IUCN, are raising our awareness and no doubt lobbying the Fish & Wildlife Service to declare the monarch as endangered. As yet the monarch is NOT protected under federal law. Nonetheless, there are Federal programs with funding to protect existing monarch habitat and create new habitat.