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        • Aquatic milkweed, Asclepias perennis
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        • Butterfly milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa
        • California milkweed, Asclepias californica
        • Carolina milkweed, Asclepias cinerea
        • Clasping milkweed, Asclepias amplexicaulis
        • Common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca
        • Curtiss' milkweed, Asclepias curtissii
        • Cutler's milkweed, Asclepias cutleri
        • Desert milkweed, Asclepias erosa
        • Dwarf milkweed, Asclepias involucrata
        • Emory's milkweed, Asclepias emoryi
        • Engelmann's milkweed, Asclepias engelmanniana
        • Fewflower milkweed, Asclepias lanceolata
        • Florida milkweed, Asclepias feayi
        • Fourleaf milkweed, Asclepias quadrifolia
        • Green antelopehorn, Asclepias viridis
        • Green Comet milkweed, Asclepias viridiflora
        • Greene's milkweed, Asclepias californica ssp. greenei
        • Hall's milkweed, Asclepias hallii
        • Heartleaf milkweed, Asclepias cordifolia
        • Horsetail milkweed, Asclepias subverticillata
        • Jewel milkweed, Asclepias cryptoceras
        • Largeflower milkweed, Asclepias connivens
        • Lemmon's milkweed, Asclepias lemmonii
        • Longhood milkweed, Asclepias macrotis
        • Longleaf milkweed, Asclepias longifolia
        • Mahogany milkweed, Asclepias hypoleuca
        • Mead's milkweed, Asclepias meadii
        • Mexican whorled milkweed, Asclepias fascicularis
        • Michaux's milkweed, Asclepias michauxii
        • Mojave milkweed, Asclepias nyctaginifolia
        • Nodding milkweed, Asclepias glaucescens
        • Oval-leaf milkweed, Asclepias ovalifolia
        • Parish's woolly milkweed, Asclepias vestita
        • Pineland milkweed, Asclepias obovata
        • Pineneedle milkweed, Asclepias linaria
        • Pinewoods milkweed, Asclepias humistrata
        • Plains milkweed, Asclepias pumila
        • Poke milkweed, Asclepias exaltata
        • Prairie milkweed, Asclepias sullivantii
        • Prostrate milkweed, Asclepias prostrata
        • Purple milkweed, Asclepias purpurascens
        • Red milkweed, Asclepias rubra
        • Redring milkweed, Asclepias variegata
        • Rusby's milkweed, Asclepias rusbyi
        • Rush milkweed, Asclepias subulata
        • Ruth's milkweed, Asclepias uncialis
        • Sand milkweed, Asclepias arenaria
        • Savannah milkweed, Asclepias pedicellata
        • Serpentine milkweed, Asclepias solanoana
        • Showy milkweed, Asclepias speciosa
        • Sidecluster milkweed, Asclepias lanuginosa
        • Slim milkweed, Asclepias linearis
        • Slimleaf milkweed, Asclepias stenophylla
        • Slimpod milkweed, Asclepias quinquedentata
        • Southern milkweed, Asclepias viridula
        • Sperry's milkweed, Asclepias sperryi
        • Spider milkweed, Asclepias asperula
        • Swamp milkweed, Asclepias incarnata
        • Swamp milkweed, Asclepias incarnata ssp. pulchra
        • Tall green milkweed, Asclepias hirtella
        • Texas milkweed, Asclepias texana
        • Tuba milkweed, Asclepias tomentosa
        • Tufted milkweed, Asclepias nummularia
        • Utah milkweed, Asclepias labriformis
        • Welsh's milkweed, Asclepias welshii
        • Wheel milkweed, Asclepias uncialis
        • Whitestem milkweed, Asclepias albicans
        • Whorled milkweed, Asclepias verticillata
        • Woolly milkweed, Asclepias vestita
        • Woollypod milkweed, Asclepias eriocarpa
        • Zizotes milkweed, Asclepias oenotheroides
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  • Podcast
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  • Home
    • FAQ
    • About
    • Contact
    • Why Grow Milkweed Plants
  • Store
    • Ready to Ship
    • Free Milkweed Seed
  • Milkweed
    • Milkweed Plants >
      • Milkweed >
        • Aquatic milkweed, Asclepias perennis
        • Arizona milkweed, Asclepias angustifolia
        • Bear mountain milkweed, Asclepias scaposa
        • Bract milkweed, Asclepias brachystephana
        • Broadleaf milkweed, Asclepias latifolia
        • Butterfly milkweed, Asclepias tuberosa
        • California milkweed, Asclepias californica
        • Carolina milkweed, Asclepias cinerea
        • Clasping milkweed, Asclepias amplexicaulis
        • Common milkweed, Asclepias syriaca
        • Curtiss' milkweed, Asclepias curtissii
        • Cutler's milkweed, Asclepias cutleri
        • Desert milkweed, Asclepias erosa
        • Dwarf milkweed, Asclepias involucrata
        • Emory's milkweed, Asclepias emoryi
        • Engelmann's milkweed, Asclepias engelmanniana
        • Fewflower milkweed, Asclepias lanceolata
        • Florida milkweed, Asclepias feayi
        • Fourleaf milkweed, Asclepias quadrifolia
        • Green antelopehorn, Asclepias viridis
        • Green Comet milkweed, Asclepias viridiflora
        • Greene's milkweed, Asclepias californica ssp. greenei
        • Hall's milkweed, Asclepias hallii
        • Heartleaf milkweed, Asclepias cordifolia
        • Horsetail milkweed, Asclepias subverticillata
        • Jewel milkweed, Asclepias cryptoceras
        • Largeflower milkweed, Asclepias connivens
        • Lemmon's milkweed, Asclepias lemmonii
        • Longhood milkweed, Asclepias macrotis
        • Longleaf milkweed, Asclepias longifolia
        • Mahogany milkweed, Asclepias hypoleuca
        • Mead's milkweed, Asclepias meadii
        • Mexican whorled milkweed, Asclepias fascicularis
        • Michaux's milkweed, Asclepias michauxii
        • Mojave milkweed, Asclepias nyctaginifolia
        • Nodding milkweed, Asclepias glaucescens
        • Oval-leaf milkweed, Asclepias ovalifolia
        • Parish's woolly milkweed, Asclepias vestita
        • Pineland milkweed, Asclepias obovata
        • Pineneedle milkweed, Asclepias linaria
        • Pinewoods milkweed, Asclepias humistrata
        • Plains milkweed, Asclepias pumila
        • Poke milkweed, Asclepias exaltata
        • Prairie milkweed, Asclepias sullivantii
        • Prostrate milkweed, Asclepias prostrata
        • Purple milkweed, Asclepias purpurascens
        • Red milkweed, Asclepias rubra
        • Redring milkweed, Asclepias variegata
        • Rusby's milkweed, Asclepias rusbyi
        • Rush milkweed, Asclepias subulata
        • Ruth's milkweed, Asclepias uncialis
        • Sand milkweed, Asclepias arenaria
        • Savannah milkweed, Asclepias pedicellata
        • Serpentine milkweed, Asclepias solanoana
        • Showy milkweed, Asclepias speciosa
        • Sidecluster milkweed, Asclepias lanuginosa
        • Slim milkweed, Asclepias linearis
        • Slimleaf milkweed, Asclepias stenophylla
        • Slimpod milkweed, Asclepias quinquedentata
        • Southern milkweed, Asclepias viridula
        • Sperry's milkweed, Asclepias sperryi
        • Spider milkweed, Asclepias asperula
        • Swamp milkweed, Asclepias incarnata
        • Swamp milkweed, Asclepias incarnata ssp. pulchra
        • Tall green milkweed, Asclepias hirtella
        • Texas milkweed, Asclepias texana
        • Tuba milkweed, Asclepias tomentosa
        • Tufted milkweed, Asclepias nummularia
        • Utah milkweed, Asclepias labriformis
        • Welsh's milkweed, Asclepias welshii
        • Wheel milkweed, Asclepias uncialis
        • Whitestem milkweed, Asclepias albicans
        • Whorled milkweed, Asclepias verticillata
        • Woolly milkweed, Asclepias vestita
        • Woollypod milkweed, Asclepias eriocarpa
        • Zizotes milkweed, Asclepias oenotheroides
  • Map
    • Canada >
      • Alberta
      • Saskatchewan
      • British Columbia
      • Manitoba
      • Ontario
      • Québec
      • New Brunswick
      • Nova Scotia
      • Prince Edward Island
      • Newfoundland & Labrador
      • Nunavut
      • Yukon Territory
      • Northwest Territories
    • USA >
      • Alabama
      • Alaska
      • Arizona
      • Arkansas
      • California
      • Colorado
      • Connecticut
      • Delaware
      • District of Columbia
      • Florida
      • Georgia
      • Hawaii
      • Idaho
      • Illinois
      • Indiana
      • Iowa
      • Kansas
      • Kentucky
      • Louisiana
      • Maine
      • Maryland
      • Massachusetts
      • Michigan
      • Minnesota
      • Mississippi
      • Missouri
      • Montana
      • Nebraska
      • Nevada
      • New Hampshire
      • New Jersey
      • New Mexico
      • New York
      • North Carolina
      • North Dakota
      • Ohio
      • Oklahoma
      • Oregon
      • Pennsylvania
      • Rhode Island
      • South Carolina
      • South Dakota
      • Tennessee
      • Texas
      • Utah
      • Vermont
      • Virginia
      • Washington
      • West Virginia
      • Wisconsin
      • Wyoming
    • Mexico >
      • Baja California
      • Baja California Sur
      • Sonora
      • Sinaloa
      • Chihuahua
      • Durango
      • Coahuila
      • Nuevo León
      • San Luis Potosí
      • Tamaulipas
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Grow Milkweed Plants podcast
Monarch Population 2014 - Episode 003

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Monarch population is nearly flat but greatly reduced from previous decades. Pestacides in your garden could be lethal to monarch caterpillars nearby. Interstate 35 is becoming the Monarch highway. Milkweed in my backyard. Where are the monarchs vacationing in Mexico?

Today is Thursday February 18th 2015. 


Welcome to Grow Milkweed Plants podcast episode three. I am the host Brad Grimm and thank you for joining me.

I am going to dive right into the numbers and break down how the 2014 count compares to previous years. Beginning with the Western count and then I will focus on the Eastern count that comes from Mexico.

Monarch Joint Venture publishes the stats for the California count. The 2014 population is 235 thousand monarchs. The 235 thousand in 2014 compares to 211 thousand that were counted in 2013. 235 is obviously more than 211 thousand, so that is definitely a good thing. As a percentage of change year over year there was an 11.4 precent increase from 2013 to 14. To play with the statistics a little further I took the 15 year average which is a count of 188k and we see that the current western count is again above average. However in that average I was excluding the incredible population that was in 1997. In a 16 year average when the 1 point 2 million monarchs of 1997 are included in the average the population is 269.6 which means this years population is more than 35 thousand monarchs fewer than the average dating back to the first reported count. 

Stepping back from the statistics for a moment and taking look a the big picture of the Western population and what I see is that the population is generally normal. Not really exciting numbers from the West. Except that the normal number is actually drastically lower that where it was in 1996 and 1997. Although we don't have formal records to compare to before 1997 I think its okay to make some assumptions. My first assumption is that the numbers were much higher before we kept records and my second assumption is that something triggered the decline. A decline of over 75 percent over two years is pretty substantial. So now I’m going to point my at a possible cause. I’m not going to go as far as to make the assertion that Roundup Ready crops are the cause but I did find some information to support discussing this further. I found a “Interdisciplinary Minor in Global Sustainability Senior Seminar (Instructor: Peter A. Bowler) University of California, Irvine, March 1998” where the text says that in 1996 an estimated 2 percent of soy bean crops will be roundup ready. And Greenpeace believes it might be as much as 33 percent of the total U.S. soybean production in 1997. So that represents a significant increase in the use of a product that kills insects like monarchs in all phases of their life cycle. The correlation in timing is striking. It seems to me that the increase in RoundUp likely caused an decrease in monarchs and that is troubling. I don’t like to dwell on the past but I think it’s important to understand how past decisions have an impact on our quality of life today. To answer my own question, yes, I think having more monarchs will improve the quality of life for me and everyone.

Moving on to the Eastern population which consists of monarchs that participate in the longest insect migration in North America. The Eastern population travels North in the Spring and South in the Fall. On January 27th Monarch Watch published the Monarch Population Status. I am going to share an excerpt from that report. Here it is: “Nine colonies were located this winter season with a total area of 1.13 hectares. Although this figure represents an improvement from the 0.67 hectares recorded last year, it’s the second lowest population on record and the third low population in as many years. Populations of this size are extremely vulnerable. Winter storms or poor conditions for breeding in the spring and summer could have a severe impact on a population of this size. If there are no winter storms in the next three weeks and conditions are favorable as the monarchs move northward in March to Texas, the long range forecasts suggest that the population has a good chance of increasing again next year.” That update was written by Chip Taylor and a link will be available in the show notes. 

So lets break down the numbers from the monarchs which are vacationing in Mexico this last winter.  

Chip Taylor said that monarchs were located in 9 sites in Mexico. These sites are all located to the West of Mexico City an centered around El Rosario. Learner dot com has helped me understand a few things about interpreting the count from mexico. The first challenge I had is understanding how much area a Hectare is. A hectare is an area of measurement similar to a US acre. An Hectare is little more than two acres. So 1.3 hectares translates to nearly 2.8 acres. Thats pretty big for one home to be on but really cramped for 57 million butterflies.

Thank you for listening to the episode three of Grow Milkweed Plants. Visit www.growmilkweedplants.com for more information about in this podcast and how milkweed benefits monarchs. On the next episode I will

Sources:

The Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/02/09/the-monarch-massacre-nearly-a-billion-butterflies-have-vanished/

Western population numbers - http://monarchjointventure.org/news-events/news/western-overwintering-population-2014-15

RoundUp - http://darwin.bio.uci.edu/sustain/global/sensem/burry298.html

Monarch Watch Population Status - http://monarchwatch.org/blog/2015/01/27/monarch-population-status-22/

Winter roosting sites in Mexico - 
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/tm/monarch/PopulationMexicoSites.html
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Milkweed Manor is progressing 5/11/15
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