Butterfly byways: Kandiyohi County first to enroll in nationwide conservation initiative

This article was published in the Lakes Area Review on Dec. 12, 2020

Due to rampant habitat loss, the eastern monarch butterfly has suffered a population decline of 80% over the past two decades and is now on the shortlist for endangered species classification. In an attempt to reverse this trend, Kandiyohi County will be the first county in the entire country to take part in a massive conservation effort aimed at saving the monarch butterfly.

“I think what the monarch kind of uniquely provides is [that it serves as] a poster child for the needs of our insect pollinators,” said Iris Caldwell, of Rights-of-Way as Habitat Working Group at the University of Illinois-Chicago who is administering the program. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility to have the monarch go extinct, which is a really scary thought.”

The conservation program, officially titled the Monarch Butterfly on Energy and Transportation Lands, was finalized by the Rights-of-Way as Habitat Working Group this past spring and has since been adopted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The conservation effort aims to partner with public and private landowners to provide monarch habitat – especially milkweed, a critical staple of the monarch’s diet and livelihood. The University of Illinois-Chicago will act as a liaison between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and entities enrolled in the program.

The program was presented to the Kandiyohi County Board of Commissioners by county Public Works Director Mel Odens, whose department would oversee the program, and was unanimously approved during their Dec. 1 board meeting. The Kandiyohi County Highway Department is proposing to enroll all acres of county highway rights-of- way into the conservation program, with 5% of the acreage being designated as monarch butterfly conservation habitat. Though other Minnesota agencies, such as the Minnesota Department of Transportation, have enrolled in the program, Kandiyohi County will be the first county in the entire country to take part. Nationwide, the program has 650,000 acres of monarch habitat currently committed.

“It’s great to have them part of the program, and we’re really looking forward to working with them going forward,” Caldwell said.

Though the program is entirely voluntary, there is incentive for Kandiyohi County to take the initiative to enroll in the program.

On Dec. 15, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to decide whether to extend federal protection under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to the monarch butterfly. If the monarch is added to the endangered species list, Kandiyohi County Public Works would have to conduct an environmental study to assess any future proposed project’s impact on monarch habitat.

“You are risking a lot of delay,” Odens said, referring to environmental surveys. “That’s the incentive for us, for me anyway.”

Homeowners adjacent to the county highway right-of-way are being informed about the intent of the county to convert the land to monarch habitat, though Odens said if he receives pushback from homeowners about the proposal, he will simply look elsewhere to provide the habitat.

The conservation measure would prohibit cutting or mowing and restrict ATV usage within the right-of way from May 15 to Sept. 20, which accounts for most of the time monarchs spend in the region; row-crop farming, which is already prohibited by statute; and herbicide and insecticide treatment.

“Any time there is a threat to an endangered species, we react no matter what it is,” Odens said. “We don’t want to ruin habitat forever.”

Angelica Hopp, who has in the past been in charge of other county environmental projects such as buffer strips, has been tapped to spearhead the program.

“I want to leave the landscape of the world a better place,” Hopp said. “We need [monarchs], we can’t see them disappear.”

Though the program targets the entire contiguous United States – making it the largest geographic program of its type – Minnesota provides particularly critical habitat for the monarch, with the eastern monarch migrating from Minnesota to Texas annually, making the migratory corridor a top priority for the program, according to Caldwell. Providing ample habitat in Minnesota is critical “to really have a high level of success helping the monarch butterfly, especially during its peak migration period,” Caldwell said.

Intensifying agriculture and urban and suburban sprawl have diminished the Minnesota prairie where milkweed traditionally grows in abundance, and have posed a significant ongoing threat to monarch habitat in the region, according to Caldwell.

Though the monarch is not the most efficient pollinator as other species such as bees, it serves as a “canary in the coal mine” for the dangers posed to other at-risk pollinating species. Caldwell hopes saving the monarch can be a rallying point for pollinators as a whole.