Monarch Butterfly Numbers Plummet 86 Percent In California (usatoday.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from USA Today: The number of monarch butterflies turning up at California's overwintering sites has dropped by about 86 percent compared to only a year ago, according to the Xerces Society, which organizes a yearly count of the iconic creatures. That's bad news for a species whose numbers have already declined an estimated 97 percent since the 1980s. Each year, monarchs in the western United States migrate from inland areas to California's coastline to spend the winter, usually between September and February. Results from the count so far show that the number of monarchs at 97 California overwintering sites has dropped from around 148,000 in 2017 to just over 20,400 this year. Counts for dozens of other sites are still being tabulated, but the outlook is troubling.

What's causing the dramatic drop-off is somewhat of a mystery. Experts believe the decline is spurred by a confluence of unfortunate factors, including late rainy-season storms across California last March, the effects of the state's yearslong drought and the seemingly relentless onslaught of wildfires that have burned acres upon acres of habitat and at times choked the air with toxic smoke. The Thomas Fire last year burned almost 300,000 acres, including areas important for monarch breeding and migration. More recently, the Woolsey Fire damaged at least four monarch butterfly overwintering sites in the Malibu area, according to Lara Drizd, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Ventura.

Comments

Perfectly normal

[bradley13]

Massive fluctuations in the butterfly population are perfectly normal.

The link goes to a paper from 1974, and looks at data back into the 1950s. For example: "A population peak occurred in 1950 and 1951 followed by a marked reduction in numbers in 1952; by 1953 the populations had been reduced to such an extent that no over-night roosting colonies could be found in areas where they had previously occurred in thousands and only seven field specimens were collected throughout the entire summer period. "

Re:Sad

[phantomfive]

Our planetwide ecosystem is collapsing

In America it's improved dramatically. Remember when rivers actually used to catch fire? Our air quality is so much better than it used to be, we used to pump so much lead into the air that it caused mental problems.

There are some issues in the developing world, but overall they've learned to move through the developing phase much more cleanly than we did (of course, they learned lessons from our mistakes, which is a good thing).