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NEWS
KANSAN.COM
Monarch Watch aims to conserve pollinator population
KELLY CORDINGLEY
@kellycordingley
Founder and Director of Monarch Watch Chip Taylor evaluates new monarch eggs. The female monarch butterflies have small tags on their wings to identify their sex.
COURTNEY VARNEY/KANSAN
Each winter, thousands of acres in Mexico are taken over by the Monarch butterflies that migrate from all over North America to the warmer climate. The spectacle carries on roughly four months, and when winter is over, they'll all have a 1,500 mile or more trip home. However, over the last decade, the number of monarch butterflies making the annual migration has dwindled.
Chip Taylor, professor in the ecology and evolutionary biology departments, is the founder and director of Monarch Watch - a nonprofit education, conservation and research program located on West Campus. He said the beauty of the migration is something you'd have to see to fully comprehend.
"This is a spectacular migration, one of the most spectacular on the planet," Taylor said. "You would have to almost walk into that forest down in Mexico where you have 25 million butterflies in every acre. It's one of our most mysterious but interesting phenomena on the planet."
Part of the education aspect of Monarch Watch involves hosting
educational programs for children as well as hosting open houses for the public. Travis Martin, a fifth-year physics major from Wichita, said whether people know about the plight of the monarchs or not, they're
all very receptive when they learn the monarchs' numbers are dwindling.
"When little kids come to [the open houses] and you get to teach them about everything, that's really fun," Martin said. "People who aren't familiar are really receptive to what we do when we tell them we're losing our pollinators, and that's
going to impact our food sources. There are countless reasons why they should care; they're generally very receptive."
Taylor said the problem lies not only with the decline of monarchs but of all pollinators.
"Pollinators are essential," Taylor said. "They pollinate about 70 percent of the vegetation out there. If you take them out of the system, plants will disappear. That's why monarchs are important; they represent every other pollinator out there."
Removing pollinators from the ecosystem would be tragic, Taylor said.
"If we pull apart the ecosystem, we create less stable ecosystems," he said. "Biodiversity and complexity leads to stability."
Taylor began Monarch Watch in 1992 with an emphasis on education and research. He previously studied bees, but when he knew his funding was soon to be revoked and diverted elsewhere, he opened Monarch Watch. The team there studies migration patterns and tags the butterflies in the fall to track their path.
"[Monarch migration] is one of our most mysterious but interesting phenomena on the planet."
"We built an organization based on the idea more research was needed
CHIP TAYLOR Monarch Watch Director
lor said.
on the monarchs, and we needed public interest, and then we always thought conservation was important, but we didn't know how important it'd really become," Tay-
In the early 2000s, herbicides and $ ^{*} $ weed-resistant plants were heavily implemented in farming, thus destroying the monarchs' food supply of milkweed — the weed on which they feed exclusively. Milkweed is commonly found among corn and soybean crops. When the monarch population began to drop, Taylor
began a conservation effort in 2005 and later a "Bring Back the Monarchs" program.
In 2007, President George W. Bush signed a Renewable Fuels Standard designed to convert corn to ethanol, and because of that, there was a massive boom of corn being planted and produced. Since many crops have been modified and made weed-resistant, milkweed hasn't been able to thrive in these new crop fields as it once would have.
"In the five years following that program, we saw 28 million acres converted to corn and soybeans," Taylor said. "They took all sorts of habitats and that contributed to the decline of the Monarchs."
In 2014, President Barack Obama brought together 60 specialists to discuss what could be done to prevent even more deterioration of the species. Taylor was one of those 60.
A few months later, Obama came out with a memorandum instructing the 14 federal agencies to move forward toward making any of their landholding a safe habitat for pollinators.
"We need to bring industry together with government agencies to rectify and make habitat for monarchs and pollinators," Taylor said. "I'm getting calls virtually every week on these kinds of things."
Monarch Watch, along with striving to rectify the monarch problem, employs students, most of whom are hired in September. Martin became involved when his sister began volunteering two years ago.
"After graduation, I'll still come back here from time to time because I like this place, but it won't be my career," Martin said. "I'm a physics major so it doesn't really line up with what I want to do, but I really
like being here."
Martin said this job is unlike any other he's had because he feels like he's making a difference in the world.
"With everything we do with education and conservation programs, I really feel like I'm contributing to help save the monarch butterflies," he said. "I feel like I'm making a difference."
Although there is much work to be done and it's too soon to tell if the president's memorandum has worked, Taylor said individuals have the opportunity and obligation to improve the ecosystem.
"We have to recognize what keeps the system together, and we have to decrease the amount of mowing we do,the amount of herbicides we use," he said. "Value those marginal areas. Let the creatures live out there."
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