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Archive for the Butterfly tag

Monarch butterflies continue their decline

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The Detroit News:

Brenda Dziedzic caught the bug, or butterfly, early on.

She has fond memories of the fields near where she grew up in Waterford Township teeming with butterflies at a time in her life when she didn’t know a black swallowtail from a pearl crescent.

“They always just seemed so beautiful and peaceful,” said Dziedzic, 62, who now operates a butterfly habitat in Westland. “When you see them, it just brings a smile to your face.”

Smiles have been in shorter supply recently as the population of monarch butterflies, one of the most popular species in the United States, has been in a steep decline in Michigan and across the country. It’s a pattern experts believe was caused by a combination of factors and put the future of Danaus plexippus in question.

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Where are the monarch butterflies?

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Detroit Free Press:

Look closely outside. Something’s missing. Something orange, black, white and fluttery.

Monarch butterflies, once a ubiquitous spring and summer presence throughout Michigan, are yet again a rare sighting this year.

It’s the result of two factors: An ongoing crash in the migratory monarch’s populations due to the loss of habitat — particularly milkweed — and Michigan’s long, cold winter causing many returning butterflies to hang farther south or to arrive much later than usual.

“It’s really a big difference. It’s a tragedy,” said Diane Pruden, a Milford Township resident who serves as a citizen researcher for Monarch Watch, a nonprofit education, conservation and research program based at the University of Kansas.

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Monarch butterfly numbers fall to record low

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NPR:

Monarch butterflies that once covered 50 square acres of forest during their summer layover in central Mexico now occupy fewer than 3 acres, according to the latest census.

The numbers of the orange-and-black butterflies have crashed in the two decades since scientists began making a rough count of them, according to Mexico’s National Commission of Natural Protected Areas.

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