Western Monarch Butterflies Near Extinction with Less than 2,000 Reported in Thanksgiving Count | CAS in the Media

The state of our planet’s pollinators took a big blow in 2020. The annual Thanksgiving count of Western Monarch butterflies this year by the Xerces Society yielded less than 2,000 individuals, a tragic threshold that has experts worried about the future of the species

Cheryl Schultz, an entomologist at Washington State University spoke to Bay Nature about the drastic drop in population.

“We were expecting it to come in low, but not that low,” she said. “If I had to make a guess three months ago, I think we would all have been talking about less than 10,000. But coming in at less than 3,000. That’s…unexpected.”

In particular, migrating populations of the North American Monarch butterfly are hurt by the decline in habitat. As more biodiversity is paved over for the sake of urban development, the North American Monarch is losing more of its habitat, including its overwintering spots in Mexico and California.

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