Ask Congress to Support Legislation to Save Monarchs

Use the forms below to voice your support for two bills currently before Congress that will help ensure the survival of monarch butterflies across the nation.

Ask Congress to support the MONARCH Act of 2021

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On behalf of millions of people like me across the U.S., I am writing today to show my support for the Monarch Action, Recovery, and Conservation of Habitat Act, or MONARCH Act, of 2021. The MONARCH Act authorizes the appropriation of $12.5 million per year for the next five years to a Western Monarch Butterfly Rescue Fund to facilitate the implementation of the Western Monarch Butterfly Conservation Plan prepared by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies. Specifically, this funding will provide funding to support projects to restore, enhance, and manage the western monarch’s overwintering and breeding habitats to support conservation of wild monarch populations in the western U.S. In the fall of 2020, the Xerces Society’s Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count recorded only 1,914 monarch butterflies overwintering on the California coast. This critically low number follows two years with previously unprecedented low numbers, compared to hundreds of thousands of monarchs as recently as four years ago, and millions overwintering in California in the 1980s. The western monarch butterfly overwintering population is nearing collapse, and significant conservation action is needed to avoid losing this incredible migration. The decline of monarch butterflies in western states is primarily due to loss of their habitat – both the forested groves in which they overwinter and the milkweed and wildflowers that they need from spring to fall – as well as pesticides and climate change. Monarch butterflies and their habitat remain unprotected following the U.S. Fish and Wildlife’s recent decision that the species is “warranted but precluded” from listing under the Endangered Species Act. The MONARCH Act will provide a substantial investment in conservation activities that will directly support the recovery of wild monarch butterflies. Please give monarch butterflies a chance to recover in the western U.S. by supporting the MONARCH Act of 2021. Please share my support for MONARCH Act of 2021 with your congressional colleagues and key decision-makers as the bill advances through the legislative process.
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Ask Congress to support the Monarch and Pollinator Highway Act of 2021

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On behalf of millions of people like me across the U.S., I am writing today to show my support for Monarch and Pollinator Highway Act of 2021. Monarch and Pollinator Highway Act of 2021 would provide $5,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2022 through 2028 for grants to benefit pollinators on roadsides and highway rights-of-way, including the planting and seeding of native, locally appropriate grasses and wildflowers, and incorporating the monarch butterfly’s host plant, milkweed. Pollinators are critical to our food supply as well as to the health of ecosystems. A diversity of pollinators is vital for pollination of more than 100 food crops as well as 80% of all wild plants on the planet. A recent study found that pollinators are worth $34 billion to the US economy. Wild pollinators such as the monarch butterfly and a number of bumble bee species are in decline, and beekeepers in the United States have reported significant losses of managed European honeybee hives. Studies show that many native wild bee species are at risk of extinction—including over 25% of North American bumble bees. Long term studies from across the United States show that butterflies are in steep decline. Monarch butterfly populations have declined by over 80% in the eastern US and over 99.9% in the western states. The western population of monarchs is on verge of collapse. Recently the US Fish and Wildlife Service found that the monarch butterfly met the criteria for being listed as threatened under the US Endangered Species Act. With more than 12 million acres of land in roadsides in the US alone, transportation rights-of-way are a significant, yet often overlooked resource for pollinator conservation. Roadsides can benefit pollinators by providing foraging habitat; places to breed, nest, and overwinter; and may act as corridors, linking patches of fragmented habitat. In landscapes that have been highly altered, roadsides are some of the last remaining habitats for pollinators. The good news is that transportation agencies can adjust practices to help pollinators without compromising safety or other primary objectives. The Monarch and Pollinator Highway Act of 2021 will help state departments of transportation, Native American tribes, and federal land management agencies make roadsides more pollinator friendly. This bill would provide grants to: • Promote early successional vegetation and limit disturbance during periods of highest use by target pollinator species; • Implement integrated vegetation management plans; • Plant or seed of native, locally appropriate grasses and wildflowers, including milkweed host plants for monarch butterflies, to enhance pollinator habitat; and • Remove nonnative grasses from planting and seeding mixes, except for use as nurse or cover crops. Please help bees, monarchs, and other butterflies by supporting the Monarch and Pollinator Highway Act of 2021. Please share my support for Monarch and Pollinator Highway Act of 2021 with your congressional colleagues and key decision-makers as the bill advances through the legislative process.
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