02-01-2018 Parks & Rec Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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MARCH | APRIL 2016 43 be matched by more than $6.7 million in grantee contributions, will support the restoration of up to 33,000 acres of habitat in areas identifi ed by experts as key to monarch recovery. The agency also has pledged more than $20 million in monarch conservation projects over the next fi ve years. “The fate of the monarch butterfl y hangs in the balance, and its future is dependent on all of us. We can either choose to let its decline continue, or we can decide to do something about it,” said USFWS Direc- tor Dan Ashe. “To tip the scales back in favor of this magnifi cent creature’s survival, we need everyone—governments, NGOs, large landowners, homeowners, and industry—to get involved. By building local, national, and international partnerships and taking positive action, we can ensure the monarch contin- ues to be a familiar sight across the American landscape.” Biologists agree that the mon- arch doesn’t need vast fi elds of milkweed for its survival. Dr. Chip Taylor, insect ecologist at the University of Kansas, founded Monarch Watch to expand mon- arch habitat throughout the United States and eastern Canada. More than 7,700 small milkweed oases, or way stations, have been created through the program. “We don’t need millions of acres of land for pollinator habitat,” said Taylor. “What we need are millions of small patches of habitat along the thousands of miles of fl yways.” According to Monarch Watch, 90 percent of all milkweed/mon- arch habitat occurs within the agricultural landscape. More than 25,000 square miles of electric util- ity rights-of-way exist just in the core monarch reproduction area. By partnering with agriculture stakeholders, utility companies are making a signifi cant contri- bution to monarch recovery by managing and enhancing habitat for pollinators. Such contribu- tions not only benefi t agricul- tural operations, but also impact utility siting efforts and vegetation management practices on exist- ing rights-of-way. The majority of utility rights-of-way are owned by farmers, making farmers a critical utility stakeholder. Utility Leadership on Habitat Restoration Xcel Energy, whose northern ser- vice territory includes much of the monarch migration corridor that parallels Interstate 35 from Minne- sota to Texas, launched a Pollina- tor/Monarch Habitat Initiative last summer. The initiative identifi es areas to plant milkweed and other pollinator-friendly vegetation within rights-of-way and Xcel- owned land at generating facilities and substations. The company also established a public/private partnership to create or restore 50 acres of pollinator habitat in the St. Croix Valley, an area of Minne- sota and Wisconsin that stretches north from the Mississippi River, almost to Lake Superior. environmental stewardship Monarch Migration Native to North America, monarchs are the only butterfl y species known to perform a multiple generation migration. They are generally divided into two populations—eastern and western—divided by the Rocky Mountains. (See Figure 1.) While the western population is facing threats, the eastern population has experi- enced a more precipitous decline. For the eastern population, the fall migratory generation arrives in the mountains of central Mexico in Novem- ber, where the butterfl ies form dense clusters on oyamel fi r trees at only a few high-altitude sites. They overwin- ter there, and then return northward in March and April to breed in the southern United States. A subsequent generation then moves farther north to reproduce in the agricultural heartland of the Midwest. A third and, sometimes, a fourth non-migrating generation expand the population through the summer until August and September, when juvenile butterfl ies begin the southward migration back to Mexico. The western monarchs follow a similar migratory pattern, wintering along the Pacifi c coast in California. They usually arrive in October, and begin a breeding and migratory pattern in mid-February to other locations in California, Nevada, and the Pacifi c Northwest.