PHOTO: A monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) on a compass plant (Silphium laciniatum)

Trouble for Monarchs — But You Can Help



Explore pollinators at World Environment Day, June 7.





We do not have to sit and watch these declines continue.







©2014 Chicago Botanic Garden and

Published by

Scott Hoffman Black


15 thoughts on “Trouble for Monarchs — But You Can Help”

  1. Thanks for giving us the information about monarch butterflies and the need for them to have access to milkweed plants. Sometimes it is hard for people with small city lots to deal with milkweed, at least the variety I had, since it spreads via underground roots and pops up in your grass, your neighbors’ yard or the neighbors’ hedge. I was glad when mine didn’t come back one year. Now I have a circular area that I could begin cultivating so I could put milkweed there. The butterfly weed pictured in the article may be something I could find. Thank you again for the information.

  2. Thanks for the info. I’ve lived in Chicago for over a decade and when I moved here Monarchs were easy to spot, the last few years ..not so much.

    It’s a shame to see such a beautiful insect becoming more and more scarce. The world needs more people like you Scott.

    Keep up the good work, and thank you!

  3. My family raises about 12 Monarchs a year not including all the caterpillars who live on the large number of various species of milkweed plants all around my yard in Wisconsin. The ones we raise come from eggs I find on plants popping up in the lawn or the neighbor’s lawns. I check eggs in the lawns and pull the plants either way to prevent existing or new eggs from being mowed down. Kids like raising them and last year I took a picture every day from hatch date to release date. Amazing how fast they go from hatching out of an egg to becoming a butterfly. Saw our first Monarch last week.

  4. My wildflower garden is full of common and red milkweed. Common milkweed is so easily grown and its stalks look good. It is prolific and if not controlled can become invasive. Red milked is more attractive but much slower to spread. I have about one acre planted.

  5. “Why is this occurring? We don’t know for sure,” says the article. Then it goes on to say that milkweeds are disappearing from the Midwest. Really? Milkweed is now a rare plant? Has the author gone outside lately?

    Good example of an alarmist article. Butterfly species fluctuate from year to year–everyone knows this. Some species are uncommon in some years. Only Van Jones would think something like this is newsworthy…

    1. Here in So West Indiana milk weeds have pretty well been wiped out by agriculture.. Gone are the fence rows that used to harbor birds and small animals. Few bees, few moths or butterflies. Plenty of flies and mosquitoes though.

  6. I grow milkweed every year and usually raise about 20 Monarchs. Last year every single caterpillar was killed by a stinkbug. How do you kill one without killing the other. By the time I saw them, the damage was done. I’m going to give it my best shot this year of picking them off by hand and drowing them in Dawn dish soap. My milkweed is coming along nicely and I hope this is a better year for my favorite butterfly

  7. My brothers and I attended Mendel high school on Chicago’s southeast side, named after Gregor Mendel who pioneered the genetics of sweet peas. The school mascot was the Monarch, as in the species of lion; king of the jungle. The monarch butterfly to me is the king of the butterfly species, travelling an incredible distance to migrate and reproduce; much like the swallows of Capistrano. Just another day in nature as they say. I look forward to planting more milkweed this year for a bumper crop in butterflies and associated insects.

  8. If the shortage of monarchs is due to genetically modified food crops such as corn, why is that even allowed? The loss of a species such as the monarch butterfly would be a tragedy. Those of us who have watched the monarchs through the years and raised caterpillars with our children have seen the dwindling numbers. I hope something can be done before it is too late.

    1. Congress and the President just enacted the Monsanto Protection Act. Monsanto produces lots of nasty chemicals to kill weeds and killing butterflies is just the cost of doing business. They also produce GMO seeds so farmers have to buy seed every year and cannot save seed over from the prior year. That’s allowed because Monsanto makes more money that way, the better to buy off a few congressmen with. Watch the video about the Illuminati on YouTube and you’ll learn a lot.

  9. I am involved in farming,and we have farmed a lot of sandy ground over the years,the milkweed plants were very plentiful.
    With the roundup ready crops,and roundup herbicide usage we have no milkweeds in our fields now,compared to thousands of milkweeds before.
    The government pays for crp acres yearly,why not reqiure a good stand of milkweeds on this land.
    Also in my area there is lots of forest preserve land,why should they not establish good milkweed populations in some of their praire restorations.
    I know I still have some milkweeds,just not the millions I used to have.

  10. Thank you for the article about Monarch butterflies and their dwindling numbers. About 30 years ago I saw a group of migrating Monarchs in the privet shrubs that border the east side of my yard. The privets had their white blooms, and the sight of perhaps 100 of the orange and black Monarchs perched on the branches was breathtakingly beautiful. My grandparents, who were in their 80s then, were visiting, and it was a joy for three generations of my family to see the migration group, probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I will try to let the milkweeds grow in my yard, in hope of helping the Monarchs.

  11. IDOT, county highway departments, and township highway departments need to stop mowing highway right-of-ways and let the milkweed grow. They also just might save millions of tax payer dollars in fuel costs, reduce greenhouse gas production and heavy metal pollution . In the winter did you ever notice that you don’t have as much drifting snow along highways which haven’t been mowed (and not as much salt needed on the highway)?

    Why don’t you try and get IDOT, county highway departments, and township highway departments to stop mowing, and grow wildflowers along the roadways?

  12. Sadly, I didn’t have a single Monarch this summer. Within the past few weeks, I’ve had a couple but they’re visiting to feed. I didn’t have a single caterpilar and I’ve had them every single year for the last 17 I’ve lived in the house I’m in. I hope with the rains in Texas they’ll have plenty of food on the migration back to Mexico. Hopefully, they still have some acreage and forest to over-winter in.

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