Endangered-species decision expected on beloved butterfly

Endangered-species decision expected on beloved butterfly

Trump administration officials are expected to say this week whether the monarch butterfly, a colorful and familiar backyard visitor now caught in a global extinction crisis, should receive federal designation as a threatened species.Stepped-up use of farm herbicides, climate change and destruction of milkweed plants on which they depend have caused a massive decline of the orange-and-black butterflies, which long have flitted over meadows, gardens and wetlands across the U.S. The drop-off that started in the mid-1990s has spurred a preservation campaign involving schoolchildren, homeowners and landowners, conservation groups, governments and businesses. ADVERTISEMENTSome contend those efforts are enough to save the monarch without federal regulation. But environmental groups say protection under the Endangered Species Act is essential “” particularly for populations in the West, where last year fewer than 30,000 remained of the millions that spent winters in California's coastal groves during the 1980s.This year's count, though not yet official, is expected to show only about 2,000 there, said Sarina Jepsen, director of the endangered species program at the Xerces Society conservation group."We may be witnessing the collapse of the of the monarch population in the West,“ Jepsen said.Scientists separately estimate up to an 80% monarch decline since the mid-1990s