Twelve years ago I visited the butterfly sanctuary in Pismo Beach, California. I’d never seen anything like it. Every tree in the grove was literally dripping with butterflies, streaming down in long garlands, camouflaged as dead leaves. It took a moment to see them, then. Aha! Wow! There are a kajillion butterflies here!
I went back to Pismo Beach yesterday. I saw maybe a dozen butterflies flitting around. No long streaming garlands. Hardly any butterflies at all.
I walked out the gateway from the grove, and then I saw a few butterflies. I watched one float down to the highway, fluttering in the breeze like a leaf in autumn. There were a couple of others in the road, three all together.
A car drove by, the wind from its wake bashing and battering the unfortunate creatures. One Monarch valiantly struggled to crawl out of the gutter, its tattered wings damaged beyond all repair.
With tears in my eyes, I coaxed it onto my finger, and carried it over to the nearby bushes. At least let the poor thing die peacefully, on a bed of leaves instead of in the cold, hard, red-painted gutter.
It’s hard to witness the extinction of a species.
The Western Monarch Butterfly population is down more than 99% from the 1980s count. This year, in the entire state of California, there are only 28,000. The Xerces Society (the bug people) estimate 30,000 as the tipping point for extinction. Numbers have dropped from 4.5 MILLION in the 1980s to 28,429 as of January 2019.
I first became aware of the Monarch tragedy around Christmas, when I was housesitting in Goleta, CA. Although I was lucky enough to see a few clumps of butterflies hanging from the trees, I learned that their numbers were down dramatically.
It really hit home for me when I was in Monterey in January and visited the sanctuary in Pacific Grove. I had visited that site, also, a dozen years ago on my journey up the California Coast. I must admit I almost took it for granted, there were so many butterflies roosting in the trees then.
I visited this year, and could count them on my fingers.
I admit I’m probably not the best at finding those clumps of butterflies, hanging like ripe fruit from the high branches of tall trees. They camouflage pretty well. Binoculars are helpful. Docents and naturalists who have been studying the insects are much better than I am at spotting them. But when I was in Pacific Grove, one of these experts had a spotting scope out, teaching a group of schoolchildren. He couldn’t find them, either. The ones I did see were flying too high for me to photograph any of them.
Pacific Grove has made a business out of the butterflies, advertising their town as “Butterfly Town USA” on big signs as you enter the village. Gonna have to rethink that ad campaign.
Walking the beaches of Pacific Grove I found a smooth, polished piece of bone, a vertebra from a fish. Its shape was an exact replica of a butterfly’s form, an apt souvenir from a lovely town where I sadly had the misfortune to witness ecosystems crashing on both land and sea. Death and beauty inextricably entwined.
Finding the last butterflies became a sort of pilgrimage for me. I spent a day searching out the sanctuaries near San Luis Obispo. First I went to Morro Bay State Park. A population lives in the eucalyptus next to the golf course. I spoke with an employee at the park museum. He recounted one time when he was golfing and saw clouds of thousands of butterflies overhead, migrating to these trees, one of those magic moments you remember for a lifetime. No more. I walked the trails and could not spot even one.
A few miles away was the Sweet Springs Preserve in Los Osos. This is an Audubon Important Bird Area and a beautiful little park. There were lots of birds. I watched a KIngfisher flash by, quick as a blink, a half dozen times, but I only saw one butterfly.
Pismo Beach was next. I cried.
Moving on, Oceano Beach was supposed to have a population. This place was considered a good photo op, as the Monarchs winter in the Monterey Cypress, only 15 feet above the ground.. No more.
There’s no one cause for this drastic drop in the population. Herbicides are a biggie, though. Probably the biggest factor in the Monarch catastrophe is Round-Up. Seeds genetically engineered to withstand the herbicide allow farmers to lay it abundantly on their fields, killing off the milkweed that the Monarchs depend on for their sustenance. Even if it hasn’t completely killed the milkweed, the poisons concentrate in the insects as they eat it. Pesticides take on a share, too. They don’t differentiate between an agricultural pest and a Monarch caterpillar.
Habitat destruction and fragmentation is another important factor. We ARE talking about the California coast, after all, and creeping urbanization continues to make it’s way up the coast. While in Guadalupe, in the heart of the Monarch’s wintering range, I witnessed an entire fleet of bulldozers, mowing down eucalyptus trees, building a new subdivision of thousands of homes, basically a new city.
New studies show that air pollution takes its toll. The milkweed’s nutrients are depleted by the polluted air. The caterpillars feed on the milkweed but don’t get the nutrition they need.
Climate change figures into this perfect storm, too. Many eucalyptus trees have been unable to withstand the effects of California’s ongoing drought. In the Goleta grove, 1260 of the 6,000 trees have died from the drought. That’s about 20%.
All the causes for this butterfly extinction are human causes.
Listening to the responses of the other visitors was an enlightening insight into our human nature. “It must be a bad year.” “They went to Mexico this year.” “it must be too cold. They don’t like cold.” “Maybe we came too late in the season, they’re already gone.”
Cassandra that I am, I told them, “No. It’s bigger than that. They’re gone. They’re going extinct.” I gave them the numbers. Very few of the people I talked to had even heard of the Monarch’s tragedy.
There’s a disconnect for us between our actions and the consequences. We don’t want to take responsibility. I’m as guilty as anyone else. Sometimes I would buy organic, but I often let my budget dictate my choices. After witnessing the results of my actions, I will be buying organic from now on.
Monarch butterflies are fragile. They really need our help. The Xerces Society has a plan to try to save the Monarchs. It’s time to take responsibility for the consequences of our actions. We all need to do our share. Eat organic. If you live anywhere in the contiguous United States, where Monarchs breed and lay their eggs, plant milkweed. Boycott RoundUp. Don’t use pesticides. Build a bat box instead. Hopefully it’s not too late. Let’s try to save the Monarchs if we can.
I saw the Monarchs in Morelia Mexico years ago and just recently read Barbara Kingsolver’s book, Flight Behavior, about the butterflies. It is hard to boycott Roundup as 96% of US and Canadian farmers use ‘Round-up Ready’ seeds for lentils and soy beans – buying organic only makes a small dent in this evil practice!
I know. That’s what makes the whole thing so tragic. There is no easy solution. Anything we do is just a drop in the bucket. It’s so discouraging, but I feel we have to try to do what we can.Making people aware is a baby step.