The irregular and disjointed rantings and ramblings of a lifelong inside-the-loop Houstonian, dedicated urbanist, enthusiastic traveler and loyal University of Houston Cougar fan, who also roots for the University of North Texas Mean Green.
Showing posts with label flora and fauna. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flora and fauna. Show all posts
This story is a month old at this point, but these days I'll share any good news I can get:
In encouraging news, the eastern monarch butterfly population nearly doubled in 2025, according to a new report announced in Mexico. The population wintering in central Mexico's forests occupied 4.42 acres, up from 2.22 acres during the previous winter. While monarchs occupied nearly twice as much forest habitat as last year, populations remain far below the long-term average.
The survey, Forest Area Occupied by Monarch Butterflies Colonies in Mexico During the 2024-2025 Hibernation Season is conducted annually by WWF-Mexico and Mexico's National Commission of Protected Natural Areas in collaboration with local communities, and it serves as an important indicator of the butterfly's overall population health.
“We recognize the key role of local communities, as well as the support of the government of Mexico in conserving the forest and providing this iconic species with the opportunity to thrive,” said Jorge Rickards, director general of WWF Mexico. "It’s now time to turn this year’s increase into a lasting trend with an all-hands approach where governments, landowners, conservationists, and citizens continue to safeguard critical habitats along the monarch’s North American migratory route.”
Scientists attribute much of this year’s population growth to better weather conditions in 2024—with less severe drought than in previous years—along the butterflies' migration route from the United States and Canada to Mexico.
Improvements have also been made in protecting the overwintering forests in Mexico from threats such as illegal logging. Here's this year's graph from monarchwatch.org:
monarchwatch.org
One season does not a trend make, and as the graph above shows, the migrating monarch butterfly population is tis just a fraction of what it's historically been. But given last year's particularly grim report, this is good. Monarchs are resilient - how many other species can double their population in the span of a single year? - but they still need our help:
Monarchs still face several threats. For example, climatic variations in the monarch’s breeding areas in Canada and the United States can impact the abundance of milkweed, the only plant in which the butterflies lay their eggs, and from which monarch caterpillars feed. Land-use changes in the United States, combined with the widespread use of herbicides and insecticides, have also contributed to the loss of milkweed and other nectar plants adult monarchs need to feed from. And while high levels of illegal logging in the monarch butterfly reserve have been halted, forest degradation in the overwintering sites in Mexico could be a threat if left unchecked.
Remember, folks: 80% of our agricultural production depends on pollinating insects such as monarchs, and other pollinators are having population crises of their own. Protecting the monarch isn't just good for them; it's good for us.
Corinne and I drove up to her aunt's farm near Mexia last weekend, hoping to see the big eclipse. Her farm was the path of totality, meaning that we would get the opportunity to see the sun fully obscured by the moon for three and a half minutes.
Unfortunately, the clouds did not cooperate, and during the three-and-a-half minutes of totality we could only catch glimpses of the sun fully obscured by the moon. These two pictures, from two separate cameras, are the best I could do (and don't compare to the pictures taken by several of my Facebook friends, who had better weather and superior camera equipment):
I also got a short video of the totality during a break in the clouds. Once again, my iPhone's camera just can't do it justice.
Even though I was only afforded brief views of the totality due to the cloud cover, I nevertheless marveled at the sight of a full solar eclipse. I've never witnessed one before and may never see one again.
Of course, as luck would have it, right after the totality ended the skies began to clear up.
Here are some other interesting pictures I took during the eclipse:
The crescent sun shines through a pinhole in the barn roof shortly before the totality.
The sky during the totality. It was actually darker than this picture suggests.
The crescent sun through the clouds, also shortly before the totality.
I took some pictures of the farm's flora and fauna as well:
Spring is wildflower season, as this field of bluebonnets growing on the side of the farm attests.
Wildflowers such as winecups and blue-eyed grass were also plentiful, and attracted lots of butterflies.
The bull warily watches me as he protects his herd. Glad that barbed wire is there!
The World Wildlife Fund-Mexico and its partners released the data last Wednesday, which highlighted that the presence of eastern monarch butterflies decreased from 2.2 to 0.9 hectares. According to the news release, this is the second worst year for monarch butterfly sightings with the 2013-2014 census holding the lead with 0.67 hectares.
“Fewer monarchs hibernating in their traditional forest habitat in Mexico greatly concerns all of us. It’s critical that all communities, governments, non-governmental organizations, scientists and others continue to strengthen our conservation and protection efforts to support the monarch’s unique migration,” said Jorge Rickards, general director of World Wildlife Fund-Mexico in the news release.
Here's the updated overwintering graph from monarchwatch.org. It's pretty grim:
monarchwatch.org
Back in 2022 I noted that the overwintering monarch population seemed to he holding steady in the 2-3 hectare range for the past several years and expressed hope that it meant things had stabilized. Unfortunately after this past winter that no longer appears to be the case.
According to Monarch Watch founder Chip Taylor, the migratory monarch population is took a big hit from last fall's drought that extended from Oklahoma into central Mexico. This meant fewer flowers and therefore less energy-providing nectar that fuels the insects' migration and sustains them through the winter.
While monarchs are resilient insects, they're going to need more milkweed plants to lay eggs and more nectar plants to feed them in order for their population to recover from this past winter's low. So please plant your gardens accordingly. I also wonder if this news is what finally persuades the US Fish and Wildlife Service to declare the monarch an endangered species.
One of the most popular and recognizable insects is at risk of extinction, according to a global organization focused on conservation and sustainability.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature has added the migratory monarch butterfly to its Red List of Threatened Species as endangered, the group said in a release Thursday.
"It is difficult to watch monarch butterflies and their extraordinary migration teeter on the edge of collapse, but there are signs of hope," said Anna Walker, a species survival officer for invertebrate pollinators at the New Mexico BioPark Society who works in partnership with the IUCN Species Survival Commission.
The monarch is the only butterfly known to make a two-way migration like birds, according to the US Forest Service. Every winter, monarchs that live in the eastern part of North America migrate to the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico, and those in the west migrate to the coastal regions of California, according to the federal agency. Those migrations have been a spectator event in the past.
There are a couple of important things to note here:
First, this designation from the IUCN does not make the monarch a legally endangered and protected species in the United States. Only the US Fish and Wildlife Service has the power to declare the monarch endangered under the Endangered Species Act. This is an action the FWS considered about a year and a half ago; they deferred for the time being.
Second, this designation only applies to the subspecies which migrates annually between Mexico and the United States and Canada. The monarch butterfly species as a whole is widely distributed across the Americas and is not at risk.
The IUCN estimates the native population of monarch butterflies has shrunk by between 22% and 72% over the past decade, and the western population has declined by 99.9% between the 1980s and 2021 -- putting it at the greatest risk of extinction.
Destruction of habitat and rising temperatures fueled by the climate crisis are increasingly threatening the species, the IUCN said.
But droughts have limited the growth of milkweed, and increased temperatures have triggered earlier migrations, the IUCN said. There has also been an increase in the use of glyphosate herbicide -- particularly on corn and soybean crops -- that has caused a severe milkweed decline in the United States.
For what it's worth, the amount forest area occupied by the migratory monarch during its winter hibernation in Mexico - a proxy for its overall population - has been holding relatively steady in the 2-3 hectare range in five of the past six winters. Hopefully this suggests that the population decline that the IUCN cited in its decision to add the insect to its Red List has at least stabilized.
monarchwatch.org
In any case, the IUCN's designation should be a wake-up call: the monarch migration is truly an amazing natural wonder; we would fail both the butterflies and ourselves if we allowed it to end under our watch.
If you want to help, consider creating a monarch waystation that provides both milkweed host plants for caterpillars as well as nectar plants for adults.
What lurks in the waters of Houston's bayous? Watch this excellent video and find out:
Although the title says "downtown," most of this this video was shot along Brays Bayou near MacGregor Park and the University of Houston; you can clearly see the Bayou Oaks student housing complex, Moody Towers, and the Health and Biomedical Sciences buildings in the background. Some of this video was taken from along Brays Bayou underneath SH 288 as well.
The giant alligator gar was pulled out from a spot on south side of bayou, opposite the intersection of North MacGregor and Rockwood. I used to catch catfish from that general spot when I was a kid growing up in University Oaks.
I always knew there were gar in that water as well, but (thankfully) I never managed to catch one!
Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) declared that one of North America’s best known butterflies, the monarch, might be in trouble. But the agency put off protecting the insect under the federal Endangered Species Act. In the meantime, researchers are continuing to debate how best to gauge the health of monarch populations.
In recent months dueling preprints and publications have intensified the debate. In one camp: researchers who have documented drastic declines in the number of monarchs in Mexico and other areas where some butterflies spend the winter. They believe the species needs immediate help, particularly by protecting and expanding the milkweed-filled meadows where its larvae feed. In another: scientists who have tallied butterfly numbers in areas they occupy during the warmer months and concluded there is less cause for alarm. As a species, monarchs “don’t really need saving,” says Andrew Davis, an ecologist at the University of Georgia, Athens.
At issue is the fact that, given the butterfly's complex life cycle and migration patterns, there's no one reliable way to measure the insect's overall population. One way to measure is by estimating the amount of Mexican forest their overwintering population occupies; by this measurement, the butterfly's population has been trending downward.
But a different picture emerges from data collected north of Mexico during other parts of the year, Davis and others say. Each season, scores of scientists and thousands of volunteers tally butterflies as they fly past recording stations, and count monarch eggs and caterpillars they find on milkweed, the larvae’s only food source. When Davis and colleagues examined 20 of these data sets, covering time spans from 15 years to more than 100 years, they saw little evidence of drastic declines. Winter and spring populations had shrunk a little but summer and fall surveys showed few losses, they reported in October 2020 in a preprint posted on Preprints.org, which has not yet been peer reviewed.
Davis acknowledges his view that monarchs are not in danger of extinction is unpopular: “No one wants [it], ironically,” he says. “They want to keep saving them.”
And the preprint has drawn mixed reviews. Insect ecologist Anurag Agrawal of Cornell University calls it “important. … Some of these data have never been put together this way.” But Leslie Ries, an ecologist at Georgetown University, rejects its conclusions. “The picture painted … includes many faulty conclusions based on the studies or data sets cited,” she says.
Volunteer surveys of butterfly populations are useful but have limitations, especially as to where and when the surveys were taken. Volunteers might be focusing on places where the butterflies currently are, rather than where they used to be, and monarch generations - there are four in a year - can expand or contract independently of one another. There are other complex factors effecting monarch populations - climate, weather, and milkweed availability - that need to be considered as well.
While the overall data seems to point to a gradual reduction in the monarch population, more research is needed before the feds will take action.
Given such uncertainties and the fact that conservation efforts are already underway, U.S. officials say the monarch is not yet a prime candidate for federal protection, especially because resources are limited and other species are in greater need of help. But they plan to decide on the monarch’s status in 2024, FWS ecologist Lori Nordstrom explained last month at a virtual press conference.
The delay worries Tyler Flockhart, an adjunct ecologist at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Appalachian Laboratory who has been modeling monarch population dynamics. “We run the risk of studying this problem to death by not taking actions until we are completely certain.”
My advice is the same as always: plant that milkweed.
The number of monarch butterflies that showed up at their winter resting grounds decreased about 53% this year, Mexican officials said Friday.
Some activists called the decline “heartbreaking," but the Mexico head of the World Wildlife Fund said the reduction “is not alarming.”
WWF Mexico director Jorge Rickards said the previous year's large numbers were "atypical" and the monarchs had returned to their average population levels of recent years.
The government commission for natural protected areas said the butterflies' population was “stable,” even though they covered only 2.8 hectares (6.9 acres) this year. That was down from 6.05 hectares (14.95 acres) the previous year. Because the monarchs cluster so densely in pine and fir trees, it is easier to count them by area rather than by individuals.
Not everybody agrees with Rickards' assessment, however.
In contrast to Rickards' view, Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, wrote that “scientists were expecting the count to be down slightly, but this level of decrease is heartbreaking."
"More protections are clearly needed for this migratory wonder and its habitat,” Curry wrote.
Environmentalist and author Homero Aridjis said that “the decline of over 53% of populations in the butterfly reserve is worrisome, above all because of the effects of climate change on the migration route and on the wintering grounds in Mexico.”
Aridjis said crime and deforestation in Mexico is also a cause for alarm. One butterfly activist and a part-time guide in the reserve were murdered earlier this year.
Monarch Watch director Chip Taylor had predicted that the overwintering population would be lower this year than last, based on the following factors:
Population growth • Less than optimal egg distribution in March and April • Later recolonization of the Upper Midwest • Low monarch production in Iowa and maybe western portions of the upper Midwest • Lower summer temperatures than in 2018
Migration • Late migrations are associated with lower numbers reaching Mexico • Droughts are associated with lower numbers reaching Mexico • High numbers in the northeast do not translate to high overwintering numbers • Northeast butterflies take too long to migrate southwest
Even so, Taylor expected the overwintering population to occupy 4.7 hectares, which means that the actual numbers were worse than his prediction.
The bottom line: the monarch butterfly migration continues to be threatened by herbicide and pesticide use along the migratory path, illegal logging in the overwintering region, and climate change in general.
Since people have a lot more time to do things like gardening these days, my suggestion is the same as it's always been: plant that milkweed.
As somebody who has dedicated considerable space in this blog sounding the alarm on behalf of the State Insect of Texas (see here, here,hereand here), I'm pleased to report that the monarch butterfly population appears to be on the rebound:
After an upward trend in monarch butterfly populations, Texas experts are expecting a massive surge in the flying insects through Texas this season.
This year is different, according to Craig Wilson, director of the USDA Future Scientists Program and Texas A&M research associate. This year, there has been a 144 percent increase in breeding population among monarchs compared to previous years.
That means there are nearly 300 million butterflies in northern Mexico that make will make the annual journey north during this summer, according to Texas A&M Today. For several years, the number of butterflies breeding had been on the decline, Wilson said.
"Figures show the highest number of hectares covered since at least 2006," Wilson said, adding that monarchs' numbers are measured in hectares. "That's a really positive sign, especially since their numbers have been down in recent years."
Before butterfly lovers celebrate too much, it should be recognized that one good year does not guarantee that monarch populations will remain stable long-term, and that our fluttery orange and black friend still faces threats:
While the population that winters in Mexico saw an increase last year, another population that migrates to California almost vanished.
One good year for the Midwestern migratory monarchs also doesn't mean the factors that contributed to their decline — like habitat destruction — have improved.
"We have to face the facts that climate is changing," says Taylor. "This whole migration is in jeopardy given the loss of milkweed and the fact that climate is changing in an unfavorable way to sustain this population."
I've said it before and I'll say it again: plant that milkweed, folks. (And be sure to use native varieties, as non-native varieties could become harmful to the monarch butterfly population.)
I can't take credit for them because they were here when I moved in, and they might not be as pretty as the ones in my parents neighborhood, but the azaleas in front of my house are putting on a decent enough show:
Usually they don't bloom until March or even April, but thanks to the warm excuse for a winter we've just had, they've decided to make an early appearance.
A little over a year ago, my parents, Kirby and myself took a trip to Puerto Rico and a handful of island nations in the Eastern Caribbean. After I returned, I began writing the following entry, but never completed it, and essentially forgot all about it. A few weeks ago, when I started thinking about writing about my summer 2016 trip to Europe, I realized that I never posted anything about my previous summer's adventure.
I thought about finishing this entry and postdating it to last summer as a retroblog. I also thought about just hitting the "delete" button and forgetting all about it. In the end, I decided to just finish it and post it today, because even though the trip is over a year old at this point, it was still a lot of fun and is definitely worth sharing. Besides, here's nothing here that's particularly dated: the things we visited and the sights we saw are all still there.
The trip consisted of a week on Royal Caribbean's Adventure of the Seas (which sails to the Leeward Islands out of San Juan), followed by a week at a timeshare in the Isla Verde area of San Juan, Puerto Rico. We got there via United's nonstop service from IAH to San Juan.
The Adventure of the Seas is part of Royal Caribbean's Voyager Class of vessels, and was the largest cruise ship in the world when it* was launched in 2001. Even though I know there are now bigger and better cruise ships out there, I was still pretty impressed by it (this was only the second time in my life that I had ever been on a cruise, and the previous cruise had been aboard a ship that was much older and smaller).
The Royal Promenade down the center of the ship contains stores, bars and restaurants. The food and service aboard the ship were top-notch, and drinks, while pricey, were not outrageously expensive. On-board wifi, on the other hand, was ridiculously costly. We took advantage of free wifi at restaurants and bars in our ports of call.
The four of us opted for "official" royal Caribbean Shore excursions at each port. Some travelers prefer not to use in-house shore excursions because of cost or inflexibility, but we had no complaints with any of ours.
Our first port of call was Philipsburg, on the Dutch-administered south side of the island of Saint Martin (the north side of the island is administered by France). One of St. Maarten's
better known attractions is Maho Beach, located directly at the end of the runway for Princess Juliana Airport. Our tour boat anchored right off the beach, so we could snorkel, drink and relax when we weren't watching the planes pass next to us. The Delta flight in the picture above was coming in from JFK.
Here's a video I took of a KLM 747 from Amsterdam on final approach. Pretty impressive. If you go to St. Maarten, I highly recommend our operator, Airport Adventure SXM. They were very friendly and helpful.
As I noted in my original list of countries I've visited, I've now been to three out of the four "constituent countries" of the Netherlands. (You're next, Curaçao!)
Unfortunately, we did not have time to visit the French side of the island. Maybe next time...
Our second port of call was St. Kitts and Nevis, which is the smallest independent nation in North America. Here, we rode the St. Kitts Scenic Railway, which is a tourist train operating on a rail line that used to be used for transporting sugar cane.
The scenery from the train is very picturesque, and it didn't hurt that they provided us with plenty of rum punch and traditional snacks during our journey. This is the only active railway in the West Indies.
This is the remnant of an old sugar cane refinery on St. Kitts. The cone-shaped building on the left was a windmill and the smokestack is on the right. The island of St. Kitts is dotted with these ruins. However, sugar production is no longer a profitable industry for St. Kitts, and the economy is being diversified into other sectors such as tourism.
Of all the islands we visited during our cruise, St. Kitts appeared to be the least developed. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; there's something to be said for a country that doesn't have a single traffic light!
Our third stop was Antigua, the larger of the two islands that comprise the nation of Antigua and Barbuda. We took a bus tour of the island and stopped at many scenic overlooks, including this vista of English Harbour from Shirley Heights.
My father surveys some of the buildings at Nelson's Dockyard, which was named after Lord Horatio Nelson (the hero of the Battle of Trafalgar). This was a key Caribbean base for the British Royal Navy during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It keeps its British charm to this day, right down to the red phone booth in the background.
Our fourth port of call was the beautiful and lush volcanic island of St. Lucia. This is a view of Marigot Bay, which is just south of the island's capital city of Castries. The island was the object of back-and-forth fighting between France and Great Britain for centuries, which is why most of the island's place names are French even though the island's official language is English.
This is a picture of St. Lucia's iconic Pitons - Gros Piton in the back and Petit Piton in the front - with the town of Soufrière in the foreground. Traveling from the capital of Castries to Soufrière required a lengthy bus ride over winding mountain roads, but the scenery was worth the trip. In Soufrière, we also toured a delightful botanical garden as well as the Caribbean's only drive-in volcanic crater.
Our fifth and final stop was Barbados. Unlike the other islands of volcanic origin we visited, Barbados is a coral island. Therefore, its terrain is gentle and rolling, rather than mountainous, and is heavily cultivated. Barbados also appeared to be the most economically-developed of all the islands we visited.
One of our stops during our bus tour of Barbados was Orchid World, with its impressive gardens full of - you guessed it - orchids. We also made a stop at the Sunbury Plantation House, where we dined on Bajan snacks and drinks.
Barbados is famous for its rum, and Chesterfield Browne is one of the "faces" of Mount Gay Rum. Here he poses for my camera at the distillery's visitor center in the capital city of Bridgetown while he prepares a rum tasting for my group. I did the rum tasting tour with a few Royal Caribbean employees who were on shore leave, which was kind of fun.
One thing that was really cool about the cruise was that, with the exception of St. Maarten, every island we visited was its own independent nation. While there are a lot of similarities between St. Kitts, Antigua, St. Lucia and Barbados - language, currency, a fanatical devotion to cricket, even the Queen as the nominal head of state - each has its own unique culture and characteristics, and it's fun to say that we truly visited a different country every day of our cruise.
After we returned to San Juan, we disembarked from the ship and made our way to a timeshare along the Isla Verde beach near San Juan. We only spent one day at the beach, however; there were just so many other things to see and do in Puerto Rico!
El Yunque is the only tropical rainforest in the US Forest Service system, and is an easy drive from San Juan. This view of the forest was taken from atop the Yokahu Tower within the forest.
The forest has a nice visitors center and many hiking trails, where the lush beauty of El Yunque can be observed up close.
This is the red-painted San Juan Gate, which leads into the walled Spanish colonial city of Old San Juan.
Kirby sits atop a wall overlooking the courtyard of San Felipe del Morro fortress on the northwestern tip of Old San Juan. The Spanish used this fortification to defend San Juan from British and Dutch attacks until 1898, when it was taken over by the US military. During World War II it was used to keep watch for German U-Boats. Today, the fortress is operated by the National Park Service.
A rusty old cannon peers through an embrasure cut into San Felipe del Morro's walls. Behind the parapet is the top of one of the distinctive guard towers, or garitas, that dot the walls of Old San Juan and its fortifications.
A couple of hours to the east of San Juan is the Camuy River Cave Park. The caves were formed by the underground Camuy River. Due to low light levels, the above picture simply does not to justice to the massive Cueva Clara chamber, with its stalactites, stalagmites and other cave features.
Not far from the Camuy Caves is the massive Arecibo Observatory. Although popularly associated with searches for extraterrestrial life (through projects such as the Arecibo Message and its appearance in TV shows such as The X Files and movies such as Contact), much of the research conducted by this radio telescope centers on radio astronomy and atmospheric research.
Puerto Rico Highway 22 is technically part of the Interstate Highway System, although it is not signed as such. It's designed to interstate standards, with the exception that the highway signs are in Spanish rather than English and are marked in kilometers rather than miles. The speed limits, however, are all marked in miles, which might be confusing. The big yellow vehicle to the left is a "zipper"machine that moves the movable barrier between the inside lanes of the highway during rush hour, so that the peak direction gets an extra lane.
We actually sent a couple of days exploring Old San Juan. The colonial city, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site as well as on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places, is very picturesque, with colorful colonial buildings and narrow cobblestone streets. Bars, restaurants, art galleries, boutique hotels and jewelry stores are among the businesses found within Old San Juan.
I took this video from atop Fort San Cristobal, another former Spanish fortification and current Nation Park property on the northeast of Old San Juan.You can see San Felipe del Morro in the distance, as well as Old San Juan, the Puerto Rico Capitol Building, and some of the high rises of modern San Juan.
Puerto Rico was facing a host of crushing economic problems when we visited, and those problems have only gotten worse in the year since we took our trip. The island is straining under a massive $72 billion debt load, the island's economy is shrinking, and it it is hemorrhagingpopulation as Puerto Ricans make their way to the US mainland in search of better jobs and quality of life. The summer we visited the island was also being ravaged by a drought; several restaurants that we visited gave us bottled water to drink because water rationing meant that they had no water service that particular day. (The drought situation seems to be better now.) Furthermore, tourism is the lifeblood of the Puerto Rican economy, and
there seemed to be a lot of concern about improved relations with Cuba
and the possibility that tourists will begin visiting that island
instead of Puerto Rico because it is cheaper. All in all, it's a very sad fate to what is otherwise a very beautiful island.
With all that said, it was a great trip and one that I had been meaning to take for a long time. The week at sea + week at a timeshare combination worked out very well for us (especially since my parents collect timeshares like some people collect stamps and can easily exchange them for places like where we stayed in Isla Verde) and we'll probably do it again on future adventures. *I do not subscribe to the ridiculous and archaic practice of using feminine pronouns like "she" or "her" when referring to maritime vessels. Cruise ships are inanimate objects that do not possess gender.
It's been over ten years since I wrote this article. And I stand by it, even though I still get hate mail from rabbit lovers. So with Easter approaching, imagine how happy I am to see this picture making the rounds on Facebook:
Look: I don't hate rabbits. I enjoy watching theeastern cottontails that pass through my yard. I just don't think they make good pets. They require a lot of attention and care. They are not cuddly or friendly; in fact, they're rather aggressive. They can be destructive. And they most certainly should not be given (especially to children) as Easter gifts.
My little gardens have been producing throughout the winter. This was yesterday's harvest:
It really is amazing, considering that, other than some minor weeding and pruning, I really haven't tended to the gardens in several months. But the tomato plants weren't killed by any freezes (can't say the same for the basil, though...), and I guess the otherwise mild winter, along with the rain, have caused them to bear copious amounts of fruit.
Texas' state insect faces demise, so the feds are stepping in. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday a plan to revitalize the Monarch butterfly population, which has fallen by more than 90 percent in the last two decades.
Last month, the Chronicle reported that the butterflies were being considered
for a place on the endangered species list. Experts said the main
culprit of the monarchs' devastating decline is the use of genetically
modified, herbicide-resistant crops that allow farmers to drench fields
in weed poison, prohibiting the growth of native plants the butterflies
use to eat and lay eggs.
"We've been aware of the plight of the monarch butterfly in North
America for some time and we have been looking at ways that we can go
about reversing the situation, and I think it was decided that what we
needed was really immediate on-the-ground action," said FWS spokesman
Gavin Shire.
The service pledged $3.2 million to monarch revival, most of which will fund habitat restoration projects. Texas will host 10 of 24 scheduled projects, with in more than $700 thousand in funding. The main goal: plant more milkweed.
I certainly hope this effort isn't too little, too late to make a difference. There was recently a little bit of good news from Mexico, where the overwintering monarch population, based on colony size, seems to have increased from the previous winter's record low:
monarchwatch.org
However, the trend line is obvious to anybody who looks at this graph. As Monarch Watch cautions:
Although this figure represents an improvement from the 0.67 hectares
recorded last year, it’s the second lowest population on record and the
third low population in as many years.
The FWS is collaborating with two private conservation groups, the National Wildlife Federation and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, on this campaign to save the monarch. It is also working with state governments. Because of its location on the monarchs' migration path, Texas is key:
The FWS will form a "Texas Native Pollinator Initiative" with hopes
of gathering local partners from across the state to spread native
milkweed seeds and monitor the monarch population. Other projects
involve partnerships with the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department and
the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
Shire called Texas, especially the Interstate 35 corridor, a
"critical breeding, wintering and migration corridor for the monarchs,"
which is largely why Texas will see so many of the federally-funded
restoration projects.
It's also why the Texas Legislature named the butterflies the state insect
in 1995. Then, a billion of the regal bugs flew through the Lone Star
State on their way to Mexico each year. Twenty years later, about 30
million remain. Texas used to herald the sight of tens of thousands of
butterflies nesting on a single, but it's seen less often today. However
the plight of the monarchs has garnered significant attention in just
the past month, and promising efforts could bring the fragile creatures
back from the brink of extinction.
I've previously written (see here and here) about the loss of monarch butterfly habitat and the resultant effect on the insect's population, before, but as the monarchs make their way back to Mexico for winter hibernation, it's worth nothing that concerns about the species' well-being remain:
For years, the worry about monarch butterflies has focused on the loss of habitat in their winter home in Mexico. But as the butterflies make their way south through Texas this month, there's even more concern about where they spend their summers. The loss of habitat in the Upper Midwest's Corn Belt has many worried about the monarch's ability to keep making the 2,000-mile trek to Mexico each year. Every year, the monarchs overwinter in Mexico, then fly to the southern United States, where they mate and produce a new generation of butterflies before dying off. Even with favorable weather conditions this year, the monarch population, which ebbs and flows, isn't looking good, said Chip Taylor, director of Monarch Watch and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Kansas. "It's an uptick, but it's not a massive uptick," Taylor told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "What I've been predicting is a doubling of the population, but that's still a small population and one of the smallest on record." Last year, an all-time low of 0.67 hectares, or about 33 million monarchs, were documented in the mountains west of Mexico City. The average population of monarchs in the last 20 years is about 6.39 hectares. In the northern U.S. and southern Canada, the habitat loss is taking its toll. "What we really have to deal with is the habitat issue," Taylor said. "We're losing over a million acres a year. If that trend doesn't stop, the population will continue to decline." Overall, Taylor estimates, about 165 million acres of summer breeding grounds — nearly the size of Texas — have been lost. "Given that loss of habitat, it's not at all surprising that the population has gone down," Taylor said. "If we want the numbers to come back up, we have to address the habitat loss issue."
Individuals can do their part by planting milkweed - the only plant that monarch larvae eat - in their gardens, but saving the monarch is also going to require assistance from agricultural interests (whose use of pesticides and herbicides is taking a toll on both the insect as well as its host plant) as well as state departments of transportation, who maintain landscaping along highways including the I-35 corridor that monarchs generally follow:
All of the monarch population east of the Rockies funnels through Texas on its way to Mexico.
Taylor said there needs to be a corridor along I-35 to keep the monarchs migrating from the Upper Midwest and southern Canada.
"Monarchs
are basically on that I-35 corridor in both the spring and fall,"
Taylor said. "How do we treat roadsides to make them a more friendly
place?"
Milkweed is a key feature of my little gardens, and over the past month or so the plants have been doing their intended job as monarch breeding grounds. Whenever possible, I collect the fifth instar caterpillars and put them in a tupperware container so that they can safely pupate away from the elements, predators, lawnmowers, etc. Once they emerge and their wings have dried, I release them. So far I've released four monarchs, including this beautiful lady:
I'm uncertain if any of these butterflies will make their way down to Mexico or if they will overwinter here, and in any case they're not going to make much of a difference in the species' overall population numbers. Still, I find raising these creatures to be enjoyable, and I like to think I'm doing my part, however small, to keep the monarch viable.
I'll plant more milkweed early next spring, in time for the migration back north. I urge anybody reading this to do the same.
They might be tiny, but my two little 4'x4' gardens have been awfully productive this past month:
It might not be readily apparent from the camera angle and the way I'm holding it, but this eggplant was huge! I'm also holding some basil and dill in my fingers behind the plant, which I used to season it when I cut it up and sauteed it.
Thanks in part to the decent rains we got over the course of June, my cherry tomato plants have gone crazy. I returned from vacation a week ago to find the plants overflowing with ripe tomatoes, which I harvested and could barely contain in this three-quart plastic bowl.
Vegetables aren't the only thing that has been growing in my garden; my dill plant did exactly as I had intended and provided a home for a couple of black swallowtail caterpillars. This is the first time I've successfully raised black swallowtails in several years.
I don't consider myself a master gardener by any means, so needless to say I am pretty pleased with myself right now.
I know it's been awhile since I posted, but since I'm not yet ready to put this blog on "semi-permanent hiatus," a gratuitous post about my garden.
There are two small planters in the front of my current residence, both of which are roughly four feet square. They used to contain trees, but the drought did them in so the landlord removed them a couple of years ago and told me I could plant whatever I desired in its place.
So in went milkweed (to help the monarch through its current crisis, and I did successfully raise some caterpillars this spring), basil (because it thrives in Houston's climate), dill (because in addition to cooking with it, I want to attract some of these guys), as well as cherry tomatoes, bell pepper and eggplant, because a guy's gotta eat.
Needless to say, that's a lot of plants to put into two 4'x4' planters, and things can get chaotic as the various plants compete for sunlight. I'm using a lot of stakes and ties to try to keep the peace between all these plants, but the planters still look rather unorganized:
It's not easy, though. Thanks at least in part to the deluge the city received last week, the tomato plants are growing spectacularly and are throwing off tomatoes faster than I can eat them:
But the fruits of my labor, literally speaking, are worth it:
Not pictured is the huge eggplant that's growing underneath all that greenery. I'll harvest it later this week.
One of the best ways that conservationists have to measure the
overall health of the Monarch butterfly population is by the size of the
area they occupy in tight clusters during the winter in Mexico. In the
1990s this area averaged about 15 acres. In the 2000s it was about 9
acres.
This winter the Monarchs occupied less than 1.7 acres in Mexico.
source: monarchwatch.com
It's also worth mentioning that we've reached the end of March and the migration is underway, but I have yet to see a single monarch here in Houston. Things are not looking good for the beautiful and iconic insect right now.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: plant that milkweed! The survival of this species depends on it. I went to Houston Garden Center a couple of weeks ago and got a couple of large plants, which are now in my front yard. I might get another couple of plants this weekend.
