Will the Monarchs on the Wall be All?
It’s official. The monarch butterfly is now on the endangered species list. After years of spiraling population collapse, the exponential shrinkage of their numbers has brought them to the brink.
At the rate their population is dwindling, they may be extinct before I’m 40.
It’s becoming clearer and clearer that when I’m old, I won’t be telling the kids how I remember flip phones or dial-up internet. I’ll be recounting stories of a time when there used to be insects, a time when butterflies fluttered and bees buzzed and mantises preyed.
Hell, I might even get the opportunity to brag about being bitten by mosquitoes. Maybe I’ll miss those little bloodsuckers when they’re gone.
Of course, with humanity’s self-made luck, mosquitoes and cockroaches will be the only insects left once we’re done with this planet. We won’t be lucky enough to keep the stately monarch.
When I was a kid running around my parents’ farm, I recall watching the monarchs swarm by the thousands as they migrated down to Mexico. In a not-so-stately turn of events, they loved mud-puddling on wet cow patties in the pasture.
I could walk the fields and take the pick of the litter for my burgeoning butterfly collection, as there were days when every juicy cow pie in the pasture had a thick coating of monarchs that stopped to have a poopy drink before taking to the skies once more.
They were so distracted I didn’t even need a net. They never saw my little hand coming.
I only took four or five in my whole childhood, a drop in the bucket back then. Now, it seems a massive loss. I note the absence of the fluttering orange wings every fall and spring, as seeing even a lone monarch has become a rarity.
Still, I’m thankful I took those specimens. If things keep going the way they’re going, preserved individuals will be all that kids born today will ever see of the monarch, all the evidence that these elegant and dangerous butterflies — so poisonous that countless species have appropriated their looks for protection — ever existed.
There are things we could do to counter this collapse. We could plant more milkweed, stop the use of certain insecticides, and preserve monarch habitats all over the continent.
Yet milkweed is not pretty like roses or lilies, and no one wants it in their gardens. Insecticides protect cash crops, and no one wants to lose money. Monarch habitats get in the way of new developments and grazing pastures, and no one wants to eat less beef.
So the monarch will be another sacrifice on the altar of our convenience, mere collateral damage in our war against our own home planet.
In as little as a decade or two, the monarchs on the wall will probably be all that’s left of their species. I never thought I’d ever weep over an insect. But today, I did.
