Migratory monarch butterflies officially declared ‘endangered’

Migratory monarch butterflies officially declared ‘endangered’

Subject: Environment

Section: Biodiversity

Context: The migratory monarch butterfly, a sub-species of the monarch butterfly that travels around 4,000 kilometres across America each year, has been classified ‘endangered’ in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species July 21, 2022.

Content:

• Monarchs, the most recognisable species of butterfly, are important pollinators and provide various ecosystem services such as maintaining the global food web.
• These butterflies follow a unique lifestyle: They traverse the length and breadth of the American continent twice a year, feasting on nectar from a variety of flora. But they breed in only one particular plant — the milkweeds. The monarch larvae feed on this species on hatching. 
• Most of these butterflies’ winter in the California coast and forests in central Mexico. A smaller population of the species is also found in countries like Australia, Hawaii and India.
• Their population in the continent has declined 23-72 per cent over the last decade.
• The number of the western monarchs, which live west of the Rocky Mountains, reduced 99.9 per cent, falling to only 1,914 butterflies in 2021 from 10 million in the 1980s. The population of the eastern monarchs that migrate from eastern United States and Canada — the bigger group — also shrunk 84 per cent from 1996-2014.

Reasons for extinction:

• Deforestation- for agriculture and urban development
• Legal and illegal Logging
• Habitat Destruction- Removal of breeding ground by farmers (milkweed)
• In the 2000s, glyphosate, a weedicide, was widely used in farms which killed much of the milkweed
• • Climate Change- making storms, droughts and catastrophic wildfires more intense and disrupting flowering cycles.

What is a Red list?

• Established in 1964, the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species has evolved to become the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global extinction risk status of animal, fungus and plant species.
• The IUCN Red List is a critical indicator of the health of the world’s biodiversity. The IUCN Red List is used by government agencies, wildlife departments, conservation-related non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
• According to the list, biodiversity is declining. Currently, there are more than 1,47,500 species on The IUCN Red List, with more than 41,000 species threatened with extinction, including 41% of amphibians, 37% of sharks and rays, 34% of conifers, 33% of reef building corals, 27% of mammals and 13% of birds.