By Brett Blocker / Editor
Published by the Lakes Area Review
It was a big week for pollinators and local officials alike—both of which are celebrating a pair of promising developments on the ecological front.
During the annual Association of Minnesota Counties (AMC) Conference Tuesday in Bloomington, Kandiyohi County administration was presented with the AMC’s 2024 County Conservation Award in the category of conservation innovation for its ongoing efforts to support monarch butterfly habitat.
As fate would have it, within minutes of receiving the award, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced a proposal to designate the monarch as “threatened with extinction,” which would offer the migratory insect widespread protections under the Endangered Species Act.
“Today, the eastern migratory population is estimated to have declined by approximately 80%,” USFWS stated in a press release detailing the proposal. “The western population has declined by more than 95% since the 1980’s, putting the western population at greater than 99% chance of extinction by 2080. During this same period, the probability of extinction for eastern monarchs ranges from 56-74%, according to the service’s most recent species status assessment.”
The proposal to list the butterfly and designate critical habitat has been scheduled to publish in the Federal Register Thursday, December 12, at which point a public comment period will remain open until March 12, 2025. The service will then evaluate the comments and any additional information on the species to determine whether or not to list the monarch under protected status.
In general, wildlife protected under the Endangered Species Act as endangered or threatened are illegal to import, export, transport, possess or kill. However, in the monarch’s case, some exceptions may be made.
According to NPR, “People and farmers could continue to remove milkweed, a key food source for monarch caterpillars, from their gardens, backyards and fields, but would be prohibited from making changes to the land that would make it permanently unusable for the species. Incidental kills resulting from vehicle strikes would be allowed, people could continue to transport fewer than 250 monarchs and could continue to use them for educational purposes.”
While USFWS has long recognized the monarch as a species whose status warrants Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections, it was unable to place it on its ESA list for the Great Lakes Region through the fiscal year 2023 due to funding and staffing constraints, and other organisms deemed higher priority. As such, the monarch had to wait until 2024 for re-review.
Even so, Kandiyohi County has taken significant efforts to protect the insect at all stages of life through its participation in the “Monarch Butterfly on Energy and Transportation Lands” initiative.
In fact, it would be the first county in the entire United States to do so.
In December of 2020, following a historically devastating year for the monarch, county Public Works Director Mel Odens presented the proposal to the Kandiyohi County Board of Commissioners—who unanimously approved the measure. The proposal was officially accepted into the program in April of 2021.
The program is administered by the Rights of Way as Habitat Group from the University of Illinois-Chicago, who launched the project in spring of 2020. The university acts as a liaison between USFWS and participating entities.
This conservation effort works to partner with public and private land-owners to provide monarch habitat—particularly milkweed.
With its adoption, Kandiyohi County enrolled all acres of county highway rights-of-way into the program, with 5% (197 acres) being designated as monarch conservation habitat. In these areas, cutting or mowing is prohibited, and ATV usage restricted within the right-of-ways, from mid-May through late September, which accounts for the majority of time monarchs spend in the region. Insecticide and herbicide treatments also are restricted.
Less than one year after the county joined the program, an estimated 800,000 acres were adopted throughout the contiguous United States, along with over 45 companies in the energy and transportation sector joining, and countless volunteers participating.
Odens also noted, in a 2021 report to the county board of commissioners, that public pushback was minimal following the initial rollout, and costs were limited to a $3,182 annual administrative fee and $5-7,000 for tending to habitat areas and performing stem counts.
In submitting a county conservation award application to AMC on behalf of the county, commissioner Roger Imdieke said the program has been a “significant achievement,” and an example for other communities to follow.
“Our program was recognized at the 2021 international conference on ecology and transportation attended by 29 countries and 508 registrants,” Imdieke wrote. There, county staff was invited to explain the program’s success “as an example of a novel local government initiative to enhance conservation and improve existing habitat.”
“Many benefits have been and will be gained from this innovative program,” he added, “such as: public/private collaboration on monitoring and seeding of milkweed; demonstration of public works maintenance staff to embrace adjustments to right-of-way maintenance; positive environmental improvements; infrastructure improvement without costly delays; and more funds to be put into road and bridge construction and less into planning and permitting. This unique achievement will guide our conservation efforts into the future and also provide a positive public image as we maintain our road and bridge network.”