Nebraskaland

had been enrolled in the federal Conservation Reserve Program. Just 24 million acres are now enrolled nationwide in the program, which pays farmers to plant highly erodible and marginally productive cropland to grass, providing benefits to wildlife and improving water quality. That is down from a high of 36.8 million acres in 2007. The current acreage enrolled matches the program cap form 2016 and beyond. Nebraska had 791,000 acres enrolled in December, down from 1.34 million acres in 2007. Urban development continues to gobble up acres as well. And even in grasslands, ranging from roadsides to CRP fields, milkweed and anything else that isn't a grass is often sprayed by farmers and land managers who consider them weeds. In pastures, cattle feast on milkweed flowers, and season-long grazing leaves none to reproduce. A 2012 study by Iowa State University and University of Minnesota researchers found that in the Midwest from 1998 to 2011, milkweed production declined by 58 percent and monarch butterfly production dropped by 81 percent. Both numbers have increased since. Studies and Solutions Chip Taylor has been studying insects at the University of Kansas since 1969 and began a tagging study of monarchs in 1992 that grew into a program called Monarch Watch. Tagging programs that began in the 1930s eventually led researchers to the wintering grounds in Mexico, but "There was a lot about the migration that still wasn't known," Taylor said. The program, with the help of volunteer taggers who come in the form of school teachers and students, youth groups, nature centers, individuals and others, has tagged about 1.2 million monarchs. About 16,000 tags have been recovered, mostly in Mexico where the program pays locals 50 pesos for each tag they recover. Taylor said those recoveries have shown that while monarchs breed throughout the eastern United States in the summer, most of the individuals that arrive in Mexico originate along a corridor between Texas and Minnesota, and in the upper Midwest – eastern Nebraska, the eastern Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan and parts of Indiana and Ohio. "If you look at the corn and soybean distribution you will pretty much define where most of the monarchs come from that reach Mexico," Taylor said. Taylor said he first became aware of the milkweed decline in farm country after receiving a letter from a concerned Nebraska farmer in 2004. The farmer told Taylor he was using Roundup Ready corn and soybeans, that it was eliminating the milkweed he used to have and he believed the butterflies would soon be gone too. "I said 'Oh crap' and realized he was right," Taylor said. "Nobody was concerned about habitat loss at that time. That didn't come into the picture until it was quite clear five 34 NEBRASKAland • APRIL 2015 Millions of monarch butterflies roost in oyamel fir trees on the Sierra Chincua near Angangueo, Mexico. Monarchs from east of the Rocky Mountains fly up to 3,000 miles to winter in this mountain range before flying back north to start the next generation.

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