Monarch Butterfly

In this Habitat Tip, we look at the miracle that is associated with the annual monarch butterfly migration. It happens all around us, but you may have never fully realized just how incredible an event it really is.

Concurrent with the status review, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA) have actively promoted collaborative efforts across state, organizational, and landownership boundaries to address threats and opportunities facing monarchs and other pollinators.

The Monarch Conservation Webinar series is a collaborative effort between Monarch Joint Venture Partners and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Conservation Training Center.

Through Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW), the NRCS has created a win-win model of private lands conservation that benefits wildlife and people that now includes conservation efforts focused on 19 diverse landscapes in 48 states.

A new guide, produced through a partnership between public university extension programs in the Great Plains, the USDA-NRCS’s Working Lands for Wildlife (WLFW), the USDA-NRCS’s Central National Technology Support Center (CNTSC), and various other conservation partners, provides the first-ever framework for addressing woody encroachment, now recognized as one of the top two drivers of grassland loss in the Great Plains.

It's that time of the year again ... time to celebrate the year's last generation of monarch butterflies as they prepare to migrate to central Mexico.& ...

Milkweed is one of the best plants to have in your pollinator habitat — Conservation Blueprint's Pete Berthelsen shows you how to grow your own milkweed from seeds.

When designing your next pollinator habitat project, make sure that you are designing the seed mixture to include the combination of plants that meet your objectives.& ...

The Bee & Butterfly Habitat Fund has produced a new guide that offers you step-by-step instructions and examples of how to produce great pollinator habitat.

As milkweed, the sole host plant for monarch butterflies, has diminished across the landscape, so have population numbers for the iconic butterfly.

Conservation Blueprint's Peter Berthelsen explains how agricultural land and pollinator habits impact each other, and can work together, in this Habitat Tip.

Incorporating pollinator conservation into your rangeland management may not require large-scale changes, but rather a shift to a broader view of rangelands as permanent habitat for creatures large and small.

This guide features regional native plants that are highly attractive to pollinators and are well-suited for small-scale plantings in gardens, on business and school campuses, in urban greenspaces, and in farm field borders.

For the monarch-friendly conservation plantings biologists recommend that 50 to 75 percent of plants come from this list with at least 3 percent of the plantings consisting of milkweed species.

Understanding when monarchs are present allows land managers to time management practices like burning, mowing, grazing, or targeted pesticide application when they are least likely to harm monarchs.

The NRCS Monarch Butterfly Habitat Development Project focuses on the Eastern population of the monarch butterfly, which occurs in all states east of the Rocky Mountains.

Small scale solutions for your farm instructional pamphlet.