June 4, 2021
The San Francisco Chronicle highlighted River Partners’ statewide campaign to save western monarch butterflies from extinction.
Fewer than 2,000 western monarch butterflies overwintered in California in 2020, an alarming 99.9% decline since the 1980s.
River Partners is working with a strong coalition of scientists and conservation partners to reintroduce monarch habitat at the largest coordinated scale in the western U.S.
Climate change disruptions to monarch migration patterns, pesticide use, and loss of habitat across their migration corridors places western monarchs at critical risk of extinction unless we adopt an all-hands approach to save them. Restoring river corridor habitat is a leading strategy.
River Partners is taking a two-pronged approach to rapidly reintroduce monarch habitat:
With a group of dedicated public agency and nonprofit partners, we are planting nearly 600 acres of milkweed — essential to the monarch’s life cycle — and other monarch-friendly plants along rivers and streams in eight critical sites across California.
River Partners is sourcing large quantities of additional seed and plants to add milkweed and other nectar-rich natives to our other restoration sites statewide. Planting milkweed and other native plants along river corridors supports monarchs as well as other at-risk species up and down the food chain.
