I-35 at center of monarch revival

By Emma Coulthard

Missouri Department of Transportation will be holding a presentation and meeting regarding the monarch butterfly population decline and the plans to build it back up. The meeting will be held August 18th at the Missouri Department of Conservation in St. Joseph, just north of the MWSU campus. The meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m.

Tables will be set up to make “seed bombs” at Eagle Days at Squaw Creek indoors, December 3rd and 4th. If you have any spare milkweed seed, bring it with you.

I-35 now has the nickname “Monarch Highway” due to six states, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, signing an agreement with the Federal Highway Administration in an effort to promote pollinator habitats along I-35.

The monarch butterfly population is at a severe decline and could be facing a “quasi extinction”; this means that the monarch butterfly could see its numbers dip so low that it may not be able to build its population back up. We could be facing a future where, in the next 20 years, there are no monarchs flying in our skies.

The hopes of this project are to increase the number of plants that create food and shelter for the monarchs, but also for other pollinating insects.

There is a multitude of reasons that the monarch butterfly population has dipped so low which include, use of pesticides, natural predators and land development that wipes out vegetation on which butterflies feed.

President Obama, who formed a Pollinator Health Task Force in 2014, backs the Monarch Highway project.

One of the major aspects of this project is to rebuild the milkweed supply because Monarch caterpillars feed exclusively on milkweed. They hatch from eggs laid on the underside of milkweed leaves, eat voraciously and then duck inside chrysalises before hatching as butterflies.

In order to really help rebuild the population, 1.4 million milkweed stems need to be planted in 20 million acres of landscape. That would equal almost half the size of Missouri. If this happened, it would be the largest restoration project since 220 million osage orange trees were planted to slow down winds in the Dust Bowl.