Accent on Natural Landscaping

Donna VanBuecken

Western Monarchs Closer to Extinction

The e-mail photo is by Candy Sarikonda

Graph courtesy of Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

Today is a sad day. Across 261 overwintering sites, volunteers counted only 1,914 monarch butterflies for the Western monarch population of California.

How does this year compare to previous years? When the Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count was started in 1997, over 1.2 million monarchs were counted at over 101 sites. In 2018 and 2019, the population of Western monarchs was around 30,000 monarchs, which researchers posited as the extinction threshold.

Mendocino National Forest wildfire. Photo courtesy of United States Forest Service.

Was climate change responsible? The warming planet expedited the butterfly declines across the West making food shortages much more extreme.

The warming planet is responsible for dry vegetation, which is the catalyst for this year’s wildfires. The devastating wildfires consumed butterfly habitat across the West. According to University of California-Davis ecologist Arthur Shapiro, who has researched the largest butterfly database in North America, Solano County habitat is completely gone. It will take at least three to five years for the habitat to recover. In the High North Coast Range, a million acres have burned, mainly in the Mendocino National Forest, home to numerous rare plants that host butterflies.

Scarlet milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) with a monarch caterpillar and large milkweed bugs. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia by DarkFrog.

Why is tropical milkweed discouraged? One of the drawbacks in the West, is the introduction of tropical milkweed. It usually does not die back in the winter like most native milkweeds. The milkweed can disrupt migration and encourage breeding during months when monarchs should be in reproductive diapause at their overwintering grounds. Reproductive diapause allows migrating monarchs to delay their reproduction, which extends their life for a number of months until they return to their northward migration.

The persistence of  year-round milkweed allows the protozoan parasite known as Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE) to build up on the plants and increase the spread to monarch offspring that eat those plants. In contrast, native milkweeds that die back are able to “cleanse themselves” of the OE spores that build up on their leaves.

Why don’t monarchs have state and federal legal protection? Recently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that monarch butterflies are “warranted but precluded” from listing under the federal Endangered Species Act. That means that monarchs are to be re-evaluated for listing once a year for federal protection. The state has not offered protection under the California Endangered Species Act for terrestrial invertebrates (including insect pollinators such as the monarch and bumblebee).

Through education and shared knowledge of creating habitat, the farmers, ranchers, and roadside managers will develop ecological farming that will prevent soil erosion, sequester carbon, and retain and infiltrate water. Photo courtesy of Steve Massen.

Who is to blame? The main problem is loss of overwintering, breeding, and migratory habitat in California. Climate change and the wildfires remain. For the time being, the pesticide use will remain. Farmers and ranchers need to learn to restore and manage pollinator habitat on working landscapes  and work with managers of roadsides, energy infrastructure, forests, and grasslands to enhance current habitat and create new habitat.

What can you do to help? Share knowledge to create habitat and educate the community about monarchs and pollinators. Help researchers better understand these trends. Report findings of citizen science to community science projects like Western Monarch Milkweed Mapper or Journey North. If you are able to document this behavior of monarch larva at the same site(s) on a weekly basis, we strongly encourage getting involved in the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project to keep a more detailed account of your observations.

 

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Whitebark Pine to Be Listed Under Federal Endangered Species Act

Whitebark Pine (Pinus albicaulis) leaves are in fascicles (bundles) of five, and the cone is dark purple when immature. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

On December 2, 2019, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the Whitebark Pine (Pinus albicaulis) as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act. The tree’s range covers more than 80.5 million acres in seven western states (Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nevada) and Canada. Whitebark Pine is considered a keystone species because it regulates runoff by slowing the progress of snowmelt, reduces soil erosion by initiating early succession after fires and other disturbances, and provides seeds that are a high-energy food source for some birds and mammals.

Importance of the Listing

The proposed listing is important for several reasons:

First, Whitebark Pine is a widespread species, and it is a keystone species. Dominating high-elevation forests, it lives in cold, windy, high-elevation or high-latitude sites in western North America. It also occurs in scattered areas of the warm and dry Great Basin (portions of California, Nevada, and Oregon).

This is a dying Whitebark Pine forest. It has faced an invasive disease and voracious insects that had not previously been able to thrive in cold Whitebark territory. Courtesy of Natural Resources Defense Council.

Second, the species is in extreme decline. White pine blister rust, a non-native fungal disease, mountain pine beetles, climate change, and fire suppression all negatively affect the species’ health.

Third, despite the obvious effects of climate change on forests worldwide, Whitebark Pine is the first tree to be proposed for protection under the Endangered Species Act because of climate change, and it will not be the last.

Finally, in 2008, when the National Resources Defense Council filed their Petition to List the Whitebark Pine as an Endangered Species, studies showed that 80 percent of the Whitebark Pine forests in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem were already dead or dying, and for more than a decade had been in serious decline.

Whitebark Pine (Pinus albicaulis) at Mount Rainier National Park. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

As a federally threatened species, protections for Whitebark Pine would include prohibiting the removal of Whitebark Pine from federal lands and prohibiting its import, export, and activities related to interstate and foreign commerce. The government did not designate critical habitat for Whitebark Pine.

The scope of the catastrophe for this widespread keystone species dramatically shows how apathy, climate change, and other human damage is destroying the life-support system of our country and planet. Plan to comment today!

The Federal Register

The Federal Register will accept comments received or postmarked on or before February 1, 2021. Go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal at http://www.regulations.gov. In the Search box, enter FWS-R6-ES-2019-0054, which is the docket number for this rulemaking.

The above was taken partially from the full story at NPCC News: Whitebark Pine Is First Tree to Be Listed Under Federal Endangered Species Act Due to Climate Change.

Read U.S. Fish and Wildlife Press Release for the proposal.

Read Natural Resources Defense Council: Feds Say Climate is Killing Whitebark Pine Trees.

 

 

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What’s Happening to Land Use?

The first formal study of erosion took place under the Soil Conservation Act of 1935. Through the years, it has been updated by many Acts. The Rural Development of Act of 1972 implemented a land inventory and monitoring program, which generally follows a complex sampling of five-year increments. For 35 years, the NRCS (USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service) has been collecting information on the status and condition of land, soil, water, and related resources on the nation’s non-federal lands. It covers erosion, agricultural, rangeland, forestry, wetlands, and other lands. It covers 49 states (Alaska is excluded), Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands to assess resource quantity and quality.

Developed Land

The National Resources Inventory (NRI) is a statistical survey of natural-resource conditions and trends in the United States. Non-federal land includes privately owned lands, tribal and trust lands, and lands controlled by state and local governments. The 2020 report shows that about 44 million acres of land were developed between 1982 and 2017, bringing the total to about 116 million acres. This represents a 61 percent increase during the last 35 years. However, the developed land has been increased less and less proportional to population change. This results in less land available for agricultural, rangeland, and forests. Loss of rural land will have an impact on wildlife and native landscaping.

The NRI collects data on natural resources, soil and water conservation practices, irrigation, and many other farming practices. For 35 years, NRCS has been collecting information on the status and condition of land, soil, water, and related resources on the nation’s non-federal lands.

The Report

Taken from “What’s Happening on America’s Lands, Soils, and Waters?” by Bob Sowers, NRCS.

“The 2017 report shows trends from 2012 to 2017,…Conclusions from the report will take years to evolve as people study the data, but we can already see that cropland acreage increased, erosion rates stabilized, and the expansion of developed land decreased. Some highlights include:

  • Cropland acreage increased by 5.6 million acres between 2012 and 2017, continuing a trend since 2007. Eighty percent of that increase came from land coming out of the Conservation Reserve Program, which decreased during that time.
  • Forest land continued to steadily increase over the last 35 years, with an increase of 1.1 million acres between 2012 and 2017. The increase was mostly from conversion from pastureland, counterbalancing losses to developed land.
  • Rangeland continued to steadily decline over the last 35 years with a reduction of 1.2 million acres between 2012 and 2017. Most of that reduction was due to losses to cropland and developed land.
  • Palustrine* and estuarian** wetlands saw no change overall between 2012 and 2017.
  • Cropland erosion rates remained stable despite the increase in overall cropland, indicating that new cropland does not have a higher likelihood of erosion.

The report also gives a statistical perspective on natural resource and environmental conditions for these lands, with the specific goal of supporting agricultural and environmental policy development and program implementation. It serves as the foundation for critical analytical efforts for USDA and other agencies and groups.”

*Palustrine wetlands include all non-tidal wetlands dominated by trees, shrubs, persistent emergent plants, or emergent mosses or lichens, as well as small, shallow open water ponds or potholes (called swamps, marshes, potholes, bogs or fens.)

**Estuarine wetlands are tidal wetlands that are usually semi-enclosed by land but have open, partly obstructed or sporadic access to the open ocean, and in which ocean water is at least occasionally diluted by freshwater runoff from the land (where a river flows into the ocean).

For the complete report, see the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s What’s Happening on America’s Lands, Soils, and Waters?

Hummingbird exchanging pollen for nectar from this Cardinal Flower. Photo by Larry Master masterimages.org

Conclusion

The net change of rural land into developed land has averaged 1.6 million acres per year over the last 25 years. This results in reduced agricultural land, rangeland, and forests. This loss of rural land — compounded by climate change — leads me to think that our environment and the extreme weather caused by climate change will result in a loss of wildlife and native landscaping.

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First Snowfalls

One of my readers from Austria, Grete Blacha, wrote that she wanted to see the first snowfall. These are snowfalls that I definitely call my “first” snowfall.

Here are some photos of the sunset, the moon rise and sunset.

No Two Snowflakes Are Alike

It is unlikely that two complex snowflakes would look exactly alike. All snowflakes are unique, because each ice crystal has a unique path to the ground. They will float through different clouds of different temperatures and different levels of moisture, which means the ice crystal will grow in a unique way.

Temperature and humidity — moisture in the air — impacts the shape of ice crystals. At 23 degrees, ice crystals take longer, and they are more like needles or pillars. At 5 degrees, they are flatter, like plates.

Since snowflakes are made of water, their molecular structure is H2O (two hydrogen and one oxygen atom). The water molecules look like Vs, and the snowflakes are hexagons — which means they have six sides or arms. When they line up and freeze together, they will line up in a hexagon shape. As more water molecules are added, they continue to add to the hexagon in an even way. So, the hexagon doesn’t change its basic shape, it just grows bigger! (Dickinson County Conservation Board)

 

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