Accent on Natural Landscaping

Donna VanBuecken

It’s Time to Reauthorize Wisconsin’s Stewardship Program

In 1989, Governor Tommy Thompson and the Wisconsin legislature created the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program to preserve valuable natural areas and wildlife habitat, protect water quality and fisheries, and expand the opportunities for outdoor recreation. Normally, the Stewardship Program is on a 10-year cycle, but it was only budgeted for three years until 2022. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) has recommended that Governor Evers’ next biennial budget include 10-year reauthorization of the program through 2031. The Nature Conservancy was deeply involved in crafting this recommendation and will work with the governor, state legislators of both parties, and the WDNR to ensure that this recommendation is adopted in the next state budget.

We have time to get a coalition of partners from other conservation, hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation groups to increase funding for the program, and reauthorize it for a longer period of time.

What Does the Stewardship Program Do?

One of the projects that was helped by the Stewardship Funds. This is the Guckenberg-Sturm Marsh on Little Lake Butte des Morts. Photo taken by Donna VanBuecken.

More than 90 percent of Wisconsinites recognize the importance of reauthorizing the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program to protect our state’s lands, waters, and wildlife, fight climate change with natural solutions, maintain our mental and physical well-being, and grow our outdoor recreation and local economies. (The Nature Conservancy)

  • Clean Water — Protecting the forests, wetlands and grasslands that filter out pollutants in runoff before they reach our lakes, rivers, and groundwater.
  • Groundwater Protection — Protecting the lands that are essential to replenish the groundwater is critical to ensure a consistent supply of clean, safe water.
  • Flood Protection — Protecting grasslands, wetlands, and forests along rivers upstream to store water and help reduce the risk of severe flooding downstream.
  • Recreation Economy — Protecting hundreds of thousands of acres of land and hundreds of river miles for hunting, fishing, wildlife watching, and other types of recreation.
  • Urban Outdoor Opportunities — Providing outdoor opportunities near home for all Wisconsin residents, including more trails and parks for those living in cities and surrounding urban areas.
  • Wildlife Habitat — Protecting large blocks of wetlands, forest, and prairie for birds, waterfowl, pollinators, bats, small and large mammals, and other rare, protected, and endangered species to roam.
  • Working Lands — Protecting working forest, prairie, and rivers in Wisconsin, along with the jobs and products they provide.

Nonpartisan Program

The Stewardship Fund is a nonpartisan program. It was named after former governors Warren Knowles, a Republican, and Gaylord Nelson, a Democrat. It’s the right thing to do for Wisconsin’s land, water, and wildlife. We have to make sure our lawmakers know how important land and water protection is for our state.

Write the legislature today.

Please let them know what you think about it.

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Bird/Pollinator-Friendly Garden

All I see is sparrows! Donna VanBuecken

As cold as it has been, the birds have nowhere to go other than to hunker down in the bushes and leaf piles. Just sparrows – this was a result of my bird count.

In general, bird are nature’s messengers. As populations of birds change, those fluctuations may indicate shifts in pollution levels, climate change, habitat loss, migration timing, and more. How will birds be affected by habitat loss, pollution, disease, climate, and other environmental changes? How will you change?

Bird/Pollinator-Friendly Garden

Plant a landscape in which birds and pollinators will have a chance of dealing with climate change. More native plants means more choices of food and shelter for native birds and pollinators. More native plants will be colorful, visually appealing, and more healthy for the landscape. The landscape will need no watering or fertilizer because of the deep roots. More than half of the birds and pollinators are threatened as a result of the changing world.

The National Audubon Society has some points for your native-plant garden:

Chickadees feed 300+/- caterpillars to their chicks daily. Photo by Doug Tallamy.
Chickadees feed about 300 caterpillars to their chicks daily. In the 16 days it takes to fledge, chicks can eat more than 9,000 larvae. Photo by Doug Tallamy.

557: Varieties of butterflies and moths are supported by native oak trees, as compared to only 5 butterfly and moth species supported by non-native ginkgo trees.

96: Percentage of land birds that rely on insects to feed chicks.

1,200: Number of crops that depend on pollinators to grow.

30-60: Percent of fresh water in American cities used for watering lawns.

40 million: Acres of lawn in the U.S. currently.

80 million: Pounds of pesticides applied to lawns in the U.S. annually. Native plants, on the other hand, support a balance of predator and prey, and thrive without pesticides.

17 million: Gallons of fuel used each year for refueling lawn equipment while polluting the air and groundwater.

800 million: Gallons of gasoline used annually by lawn mowers. This produces significant amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, driving climate change.

Easy Ways to Create Bird/Pollinator Friendly Gardens

Recommended native plants for sunny areas by designer Rosemary Eiden (WOFVAC).

Create native landscapes that will benefit birds and pollinators and you. This website provides practical, educationally sound information on native landscaping developed specifically for first-time native-plant gardeners. Included in the website is native-garden designs created by professional landscape designers for multiple ecoregions in the United States. The native-plant list takes into account the various light, soil, and moisture conditions. Read more at the Wild Ones.

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Warranted but Precluded

Recently, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced that the
Endangered Species Act Listing for the monarch butterfly was “warranted, but precluded” by work on higher-priority listing actions.

First monarch of the season nectaring on Virginia Bluebell (Mertensia virginica). Photo courtesy of Donna VanBuecken

With this decision, the monarch becomes a candidate for listing, and its status will be reviewed each year until it is no longer a candidate. In the case of the monarch butterfly, the USFWS states that they plan to propose the monarch for listing in fiscal year 2024 if the listing is still warranted (as prioritized by the National Listing Workplan).

ESA and Habitat

Trump’s administration finalizes the “new” Endangered Species Act before the end.

Monarch butterfly on Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata) at the WILD Center. Photo courtesy of Donna VanBuecken

On December 20, 2020, USFWS defines habitat under ESA: “Habitat is the abiotic and biotic setting that currently or periodically contains the resources and conditions necessary to support one or more life processes of a species.” This definition prohibits the federal agencies from designating areas that are not currently occupied by the species as habitat and would further ecosystem restoration improvements to become suitable habitat. It would also prohibit federal agencies from protecting areas that could become important habitat for rare species under climate change.

Another finalized rule allows USFWS to exclude areas from critical habitat designations for endangered species if the critical habitat designation would cause negative economic impacts or harm national security or outdoor recreation opportunities.

We Can We Do?

Monarch butterfly ovipositing onto the host plant milkweed. Photo by Candi Sarikonda.

“This scientific review of the population status clearly demonstrates that monarchs need our urgent support. Voluntary, proactive conservation is necessary, and this work goes beyond monarchs; by conserving monarchs, we benefit grassland habitats and countless organisms. This supports the delicate balance of biodiversity and helps mitigate the decline of many species, before they need ESA protections.” (Monarch Joint Venture)

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.

Check out USFWS Questions and Answers: 12-month finding on a petition to list the monarch butterfly and watch for more updates on the USFWS monarch butterfly page. Find contact information for your House and Senate representatives to write them and express your opinion.

States have their Monarch Conservation Strategy

Monarch nectaring on Rough Blazingstar (Liatris aspera). Photo courtesy of Donna VanBuecken

According to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR), the  Natural Heritage Conservation “will continue to support the Wisconsin Monarch Collaborative to implement the twenty-year Wisconsin Monarch Conservation Strategy. That strategy seeks to enlist homeowners, farmers, utilities, and other groups in voluntarily adding native milkweed and wildflowers to their property, with a goal of adding around 120 million more native milkweed stems, along with nectar sources, to the Wisconsin landscape by 2038. Habitat loss is the primary driver for the 80 percent decline in the eastern U.S. population of monarchs that breeds in Wisconsin during the summer.” (WDNR)

Connecticut Butterfly Atlas Project

Illinois Monarch Monarch Initiative

Indiana Monarch Monarch Conservation Plan

Iowa Monarch Conservation Strategy

Kentucky Monarch Conservation Plan

Maryland Monarch Conservation

Michigan Monarch Strategy

Mid-American Monarch Conservation  Strategy
(Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas and Wisconsin)

Minnesota The Monarch Joint Venture

Missourians for Monarchs

New Jersey Monarch Butterfly Guide

New York Pollinator Conservation Association

Environment North Carolina

North Dakota Monarch Butterfly and Native Pollinator Strategy

Ohio Pollinator Habitat Program

Pennsylvania Save the Monarch

Texas Monarch Flyway Strategy  and  Gulf-Houston Monarch Flyway

Western States Monarch Conservation Plan
(California, Arizona, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah)

 

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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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