- Hey, it is Cynthia here with another episode of "Modern Gardener" and we are so excited.

I'm so excited.

Because today we are talking about one of my most favorite, favorite insects of all.

The Monarch Butterfly.

I have to give a shout out to our friends and our sponsors, Merit Medical and Red Butte Garden & Arboretum.

It's because of them that makes these episodes possible.

I have the one, the only Amanda Barth, who is an expert on butterflies and the conservation powerhouse.

So, I just wanna know a little bit more about you.

- I have a background in pollination ecology and also 10 years as a science educator.

- [Cynthia] Oh.

- [Amanda] And so, now I'm here working as the rare insect conservation coordinator for Utah.

- That's amazing.

Okay.

I absolutely adore and have read so much about monarchs.

So, I would love- - Yeah.

- For you to teach me more, and everyone that's watching all about these amazing creatures.

Let's just start at the beginning.

The metamorphosis of a butterfly.

- Yeah, monarchs are a lot like, a lot of other insects that have all four stages of metamorphosis.

They start as an egg on a milkweed plant.

They hatch into little caterpillars.

Then, they have several developmental stages called instars, and they munch on milkweed only, putting on as much weight as possible.

Then, they leave their host plant usually and try to find somewhere to hide, and then they go pupate into a beautiful green chrysalis.

And then- [Cynthia] It's gorgeous.

It looks like it has little gold specks on it.

- [Amanda] Yeah, it's really pretty.

They spend a few days there and they develop into the adult.

- [Cynthia] Well, and something super cool.

In the chrysalis, you know that it's about to hatch if all of a sudden you see it change color and it's no longer that jade and gold.

And it turns into, like, it looks like a butterfly inside.

- [Amanda] Yeah.

You can see their patterns through the edge.

- [Cynthia] Amazing.

And then they hatch out.

They sit there for a little bit, wiggle.

- [Amanda] Yeah.

They pump hemolymph into their wings and they kind of inflate them, and then the wings have to dry, to cure.

And then they're strong enough to then fly around and look for mates and look for nectar.

- So, let's talk a little bit about the different kinds of monarchs.

- [Amanda] There's two different big migratory populations that are in North America.

There's the eastern population, which is, it's not necessarily a different kind of monarch, but it is the eastern monarch population, and their lifecycle is east of the Rocky Mountains.

And that's the biggest population.

An order of magnitude larger than the Western population that occurs here in Utah, and we host their breeding season.

- So tell me, why do they even migrate?

Like, how do they know instinctually that they need to migrate and what's their purpose for migration?

- If we start at the overwintering grounds.

They are there because those forests that they roost in, they're cool, they have this protection from wind.

And then just adjacent to that are the milkweed that start to emerge in the early spring.

So, when they get the signal, you know, temperature starts to warm up and they start spending a little more time together, and there's some romance in the air.

And then, the females are looking for milkweed immediately to lay their eggs on.

And so, when there are early emerging milkweed, and that's in both California and in Mexico, north of the Oyamel forests, they start laying their eggs there.

And then, that is the first, like, migratory generation.

It's the spring migration.

So, when those eggs develop into adults, they are flying northward as milkweed is basically re-emerging across its range.

So, they are following that.

It's all kind of blooming together- [Cynthia] Interesting.

[Amanda] Across the landscape.

- Well, and I find it fascinating that the host plant that they have to lay their egg on is not any plant.

It is milkweed.

- Right.

- This may be a myth-busting moment that I don't know.

But I have heard that there's, like, different types of milkweed.

So, the eastern monarch tends to go for a different kind of milkweed versus western monarchs that like more showy milkweed or different kinds of milkweed.

And so, it's tricky when people start planting different kinds of milkweed that may not be the best host for our population of western monarchs.

- Yeah, milkweed are just adapted to their own unique landscape.

And so, we have some really, really drought, hardy milkweed out here in the West.

And not so much that they're not good plants for monarchs to eat, but they are harder to eat.

They're a little thicker, they're better.

They have more sunscreen built into their leaves and fuzzier leaves.

So, those are just like less easy for caterpillars to eat.

What we have here for monarchs is a lot of breeding ground.

These river canyon corridors, riparian habitat across the southern part of the state.

And we have a lot of wetlands in the northern part of the state.

The areas that are really well watered tend to have things like showy milkweed, swamp milkweed, common milkweed, horsetail.

There's a bunch of different kinds that, these are in areas that have water.

There're kind of marshes and wet meadows.

And those are just already better habitats for monarchs to grow.

And then, they are deciduous.

So, in the cooler months, they start to die back.

And that's part of the big signal that tells the latest generation of monarchs to start migrating.

Their metabolism is really dependent on temperature.

[Cynthia] Interesting.

[Amanda] And so, when it's cooler and when the days are shorter, then they don't burn through their fat stores.

And then, they're also not developing reproductively.

- Okay.

- They kinda suspend that.

And so that's, they use their fat stores to get to the overwintering grounds instead.

[Cynthia] Wow.

[Amanda] So, they make this, like, thousand plus- [Cynthia] Yeah.

Journey.

[Amanda] 2,000 mile journey.

That's the super generation.

That generation lives like eight to nine months.

- That's what I was gonna ask you.

- Yeah.

- Because it's like, eight to nine months, but what is the lifespan of just a regular monarch?

- Breeding monarchs are like 30 days.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

- Wait.

- 30 days.

- 30 days from?

- Well.

- Actual butterfly, right?

- From egg.

- Because it's like- - To adult.

- No.

- Yeah.

- It's only 30 days?

- Yeah.

- Wow.

- I mean, it's, you know- - They do a lot in that time.

- They don't count.

They don't look at their watch and say, "Well, you know?"

- "It's time for me to head on out."

(laughs) - "I'm gonna go ahead and die."

- I wanna get more into like the dirty-shmerty, the behind the wings of what's going on with our monarch population.

- [Amanda] Yeah.

[Cynthia] Because I remember as a kid, like, the monarchs were so many that sadly at the time, they would just smack your window all the time.

And I remember my dad being like, "Oh, the monarchs are flying through again!"

And that is no longer.

[Amanda] Yeah.

[Cynthia] Like, especially the western monarch population.

[Amanda] Yeah.

[Cynthia] Has declined significantly down to like, is it 99% or?

since the '80s.

- The estimated peak in the last century or something is around 4 million for this population.

- Why?

Why has it been that much of a decline?

- Well, it's too many things happening at the same time.

One part is the effects of climate change and drought and high temperatures.

You know, they're kind of dark butterflies and when they don't have a lot of shade, they have a hard time surviving.

The really dramatic expansion of modern industrial agriculture and a lot of development and land use.

When the limiting factors are overwhelming, like pesticides and just lack of nectar resources, lack of shade for them to perch in.

You know, their ideal settings are few and far between.

Unfortunately, monarchs end up getting the short end of that.

- And with that, I wanna talk about something that might be a little controversial.

People that are trying to help butterflies and help the monarch specifically about rearing or taking care of monarchs.

I've done it.

- So, captive rearing is creating an artificial growing environment for anything.

And sometimes you're conditioning that individual, that organism to conditions it wouldn't experience in the wild.

- [Cynthia] Keeping it as a pet per se.

- Yeah.

It's kinda like keeping it as a pet.

Yeah.

Letting it- - So, it's depending on whatever resources that you provide, and it might not always encounter those in a natural setting.

Captive rearing does take a lot of energy.

So, if you're not putting that kind of energy into creating habitat that supports those individuals once they're released?

You're really not helping the population at all because they don't have any problem with fertility.

They can lay a ton of eggs.

They just need habitat to protect them that is safe.

So, they need water, they need milkweed, they need nectar.

It's not a bad thing to want to protect and like, see a monarch through its whole lifecycle and then send it off into the world.

But if you aren't putting as much effort into creating habitat as you are into rearing, then you're kind of sending a whole dinner party into a room with- - One plate.

- Too few plates, you know?

You have to create a buffet before you invite guests.

- So, what I'm hearing is- - Yeah.

- Focus on the habitats.

- Focus on the habitat.

If you have a garden, you have any kind of plants that you could put in your garden.

I always promote native species.

Try get some diversity in there.

If you can plant milkweed, we recommend showy or swamp milkweed because those are, like, the most common in northern Utah and monarchs love to lay their eggs on those.

- I also think they're, I think they're pretty, - Yeah.

- I can work into anybody's landscape.

- So, you can plant your milkweed.

You can plant native nectar resources, shade.

Monarchs always need shade in the summertime.

They're here to breed, and so it gives them a good place to perch and rest.

You can avoid putting pesticides on your gardens.

- Oh, that's a good one.

- Yeah.

Insecticide is a really big challenge.

- And it's not just for monarchs, frankly.

It's for a lot of insects.

And obviously, we know that there's the good and the bad of insects, right?

But- - I mean.

- But if you- - I don't know.

I really like all the insects.

- Somebody like you- - I'm not gonna- - 'Cause you have your shirt with all the insects on it.

- I don't have any... I don't have any specific.

Well, there's a couple that bite that I'm like, would rather avoid.

- But monarchs don't bite?

- Yeah.

No, monarchs don't bite.

And monarchs are just a really good, they're kind of the canary in the coal mine, you know?

They're a really a representative example of the health of the systems that they rely on.

But because they've had a really visible crash, that's just a clue about the other species that rely on those same landscapes and how they're doing.

So, I emphasize this.

Healthy systems are diverse systems and I've kind of created a "chaos garden" as I like to call it.

- Yes.

I love that term.

Tell me about your chaos garden.

- It's the product of both removing lawn and weeds and landscape fabric, and taking as many native seeds as I could find and get ahold of.

I've had like 55 different species of native bees in the last two years.

- Wow.

- That is very cool.

I get monarchs in my yard, of course.

- Yes.

Yeah.

But there's other- - Yeah.

- There's other insects that you're gonna notice when you plant in a chaos garden or you bring in more diversity that are not just monarchs.

- Right.

- It's quite an amazing- - It's a culture shift too, you know?

I know that some of my neighbors are like, "Hey, what does your yard look like that?"

But I have signs up.

I try to communicate, like, "This is intentional.

I want things to look diverse."

I'm really lucky to have a yard that I'm allowed to use as a workshop.

- And I think it's important for all of us to remember that we are part of this whole ecology.

- Yeah.

- Well, Amanda, thank you so much for introducing us and showing us the ways of your chaos garden, and also giving us so much information about monarchs.

This has been amazing.

You can also think about what you're doing to help not only the monarchs, but other insects.

Thank you so much for watching.

We'll see you again next time.

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