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Field Museum Seeks Local Input on Monarch Conservation

photo credit: Adriana Fernandez

The iconic monarch butterfly and other pollinators are in trouble—their habitat, including milkweed host plants and nectar food sources—has declined drastically throughout most of the U.S., along with population counts. However, we all can play a part in reversing this trend, including those living in cities. By adding plants monarchs need to survive, primarily milkweed and other native flowers to home gardens, schools, offices, and farms, we can create the best conditions to bring back the monarch.

The Field Museum’s Keller Science Action Center is developing a conservation strategy to guide this important work. The Action Center specializes in connecting people to nature in urban areas using ecology, social science, mapping and community engagement, and is partnering with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives and partner organizations in Austin, Kansas City and Minneapolis on a year-long project to answer key questions about how best to conserve monarchs in urban areas along the monarch’s central flyway.

The questions this effort is addressing include: how much can urban areas contribute to overall monarch conservation efforts; where are the best places to create monarch habitat within urban areas; what are the best ways to engage in urban monarch conservation, given the city’s diversity of people and places; and what are the other benefits of creating monarch habitat in cities.

As part of the project, the Urban Monarch team is surveying and interviewing people engaged in a wide range of environmental practices that include land management, education, monitoring and others that relate to the success of monarchs and other pollinators. They need public input to develop a successful monarch butterfly conservation strategy.

To participate, visit FieldMuseum.org/monarchs and take the Museum’s online survey on environmental practices. The survey closes September 15, 2016.