The migrating monarch butterfly was recently named as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
The announcement came last week from the IUCN in Switzerland. The monarch is now on their "Red List of Threatened Species as Endangered" by habitat destruction and climate change."
This is the subspecies of monarch that travels thousands of miles to find its summer breeding grounds. The IUCN reports they’re down between 22 and 72 percent since 2012.
The IUCN:
"Legal and illegal logging and deforestation to make space for agriculture and urban development has already destroyed substantial areas of the butterflies’ winter shelter in Mexico and California, while pesticides and herbicides used in intensive agriculture across the range kill butterflies and milkweed, the host plant that the larvae of the monarch butterfly feed on."
Misty Minar is Botanical Curator at the Mesker Park Zoo in Evansville. She’s been working at the zoo for 27 years.
“I definitely have seen less butterflies in general, but definitely less monarchs than we used to see,”Minar said. “So I would definitely would say we've seen a decline in monarchs for sure around here.”
Minar said they’re doing what they can for the butterfly with their gardens.
“We've worked hard here from, from educating the public to planting milkweed in our gardens to having it for sale at our plant sale, to share with the public,” she said, adding that they have plans to make a monarch waystation and another garden at the zoo.
The same article by the IUCN named other species and offered updates on their status. Aside from the migrating monarchs, all varieties of sturgeon in the Northern Hemisphere have been labeled as "endangered."
Indiana is home to the Shovelnose Sturgeon. The IUCN reports that all 26 species are threatened with extinction, and some are closer than others.
"All surviving sturgeon species – also migratory, found across the northern hemisphere – are now at risk of extinction due to dams and poaching, pushing the world’s most Critically Endangered group of animals yet closer to the brink."
The good news, is that worldwide tiger populations have stabilized or are growing, according to the reassessed IUCN numbers.