Pollinator – Palouse Upland Media

Western Monarch Butterflies see an Inspiring Rebound

February 27, 2022April 28, 2022Brad Trumbo

Published at Harvesting Nature, February 10th, 2022.

In April 2021, I wrote a piece for Harvesting Nature on what appeared to be the imminent extinction of the western Monarch butterfly population. Only about 2,000 butterflies arrived on their southern California winter range in 2020 where approximately five million once clouded the skies and trees. When a population sees decline of this magnitude, coming back from the brink is rare, particularly in one breeding season, but it seems there is more to the story on the western monarch butterfly.

The 2021 Thanksgiving monarch count saw an unprecedented number of citizen scientists eager to help collect important population data. Across 283 count sites, the western monarch population estimate was over 247,000 individuals – a 100-fold increase in the 2020 count.

Given the monarch’s astonishing rebound, population limiting factors come into question. What was it about 2021 – a severe drought year in the western U.S. – that was somehow favorable to the marked population increase? According to Emma Pelton, the Western Monarch Lead with the Xerces Society, “There are so many environmental factors at play across their range that there’s no single cause or definitive answer…but hopefully it means we still have time to protect the migration.”

Weather likely played a factor. Dry spring and summer conditions can coax first-generation monarch butterflies out of their cocoons. “Those first-generation butterflies that breed in California and at Santa Cruz landmarks such as Lighthouse Field and Natural Bridges are crucial for the species’ population numbers to sustain” reported Hannah Hagemann of the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

While the 2021 count was inspiring, the population increase should be taken with caution. The Western Monarch Butterfly Conservation Plan identifies a five-year-average winter count of 500,000 butterflies to represent a sustainable population. Additionally, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is still on track to propose an Endangered Species Act listing for this iconic transcontinental butterfly in 2024.

Is it too Late for the Western Monarch Butterfly?

May 19, 2021Brad Trumbo

Is it Too Late for the Western Monarch Butterfly? – Harvesting Nature

The monarch butterfly presents a continent-wide icon of the butterfly genera. Its red-orange wings with defining black outlines and white freckles once danced over pastures, thistle and milkweed across their North American range, but land use changes since the 1980s have dramatically affected monarch populations.

Monarchs make a marvelous migration to winter “hivers” based on their summer breeding range in the U.S. and southern Canada. The Rocky Mountains, of course, divide the major migration routes. Eastern monarchs overwinter in southern Florida and Mexico, while western monarchs overwinter on the southern California coast.

Their reliance on milkweed makes for an easy classroom experiment, collecting the vibrant, yellow, black and white-striped caterpillar with a few leaves and watching it turn into a chrysalis, then mature and hatch into the adult butterfly. But, at present, the monarch population has declined more than 80 percent in the past 30 years; the western population facing extinction.

In 1997, the Xerces Society established the Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count, similar to the Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count, where “citizen scientists” document monarchs on their western winter hiver. According to Washington State University, the 10 million monarchs documented in the 1980s declined to 30,000 in 2018, and fell below 2,000 this past winter.

Monarchs on the winter hiver (photo in public domain)

Dramatic loss of the western monarch population led to special interest groups petitioning the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to protect the butterfly and their habitat with a listing under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). A FWS status review determined that “…listing the monarch butterfly as endangered under the ESA is warranted but precluded by higher priority actions.” In other words, there are more than 100 species ahead of the monarch in need of FWS resources and protection.

Additionally, under the ESA, an insect species cannot be segregated into subpopulations such as birds, mammals and fishes. Therefore, the FWS must consider the status of the monarch butterfly as one population across its North American range. If the western monarch were to be carved off as its own “distinct population segment”, it’s ESA listing priority would likely be much higher.

While the western monarch faces a dire future, Pheasants Forever, Quail Forever and the Xerces Society promote pollinator initiatives that benefit monarchs among other pollinator species. Many Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever chapters are willing to cost-share on pollinator enhancement projects.

Additionally, two congressional bi-partisan bills, the Monarch Action, Recovery, and Conservation of Habitat (MONARCH) Act, as well as the Monarch and Pollinator Highway Act, were recently introduced to avoid the extinction of the western monarch.

The MONARCH Act would authorize $62.5 million for western monarch conservation projects, and another $62.5 million to implement the Western Monarch Butterfly Conservation Plan, paid out over the next five years. The Monarch and Pollinator Highway Act would establish a federal grant program available to state departments of transportation and Native American tribes to carry out pollinator-friendly practices on roadsides and highway rights-of-way.

At the local level, milkweed promotion could have a positive influence for the western monarch. Various studies suggest small patches of milkweed, as small as two- to five-square-yards in area, could be affective for increasing reproduction. Patches that small area easily managed in a backyard flowerbed or garden, and the western native “showy milkweed” boasts a beautiful spiked ball of pink bloom, worthy of being added to any pollinator seed mix.

Recent conservation initiatives are late to the table for the western monarch, and the upcoming reproduction season is critical to their long-term survival. Will this iconic pollinator population boast a success story similar to species like the greater sage grouse or bald eagle? Time and a few congressional votes will tell.

Raising Pheasant from the Ground Up

June 10, 2020Brad Trumbo

Sustainable farming practices to benefit wildlife is a topic for discussion in grain capitols across the country. To the farmer, the mention of sustainability may trigger consideration of production and bottom line. To the biologist, thoughts of crop rotation and managed fallow lands provide wildlife food, water and shelter. And to the economist, efficiency and bang-for-the-buck in the form of yield versus effort/acreage sewn would likely provoke a back-of-the-napkin chart explaining the benefits.

So how does one actually define sustainable farming? A combination of all of the above. Sustainable farming includes economics, reducing production acreage to focus on the most productive for maximum yield. The less productive ground can be leased into CRP or to an NGO like Pheasants Forever to manage for wildlife.

To take it one step further, habitat-minded agriculture may provide a mix of no-till planting and forage and cover crops built into rotation schedules. This permits soil replenishment and works to combat invasive species by providing different plant competitors, insects, and invasive plant treatment options. Forage or cover crops can be sewn alongside winter cover like cattails and other wetland habitats to reduce energy expense and vulnerability critters may experience when seeking food and cover in winter. Pollinators benefit as well.

Sounds great, right, but are the benefits actually attainable? Absolutely. Case-studies have proven the benefits to the farmer and wildlife through these sustainable practices. Midwest farms have shown production of preserve-scale wild pheasant through habitat-minded farming practices while maintaining or increasing their bottom line. And who out there would argue that they don’t enjoy wildlife like upland birds? If you answered “no one”, we couldn’t agree more!

If you find this encouraging from any perspective, reach out to your local Pheasants Forever or Quail Forever Chapter. In southeast Washington/northeast Oregon area, contact us at bmpf@bmpf258.com for more information.

Mason Bees Promote Food Security and Conservation

May 3, 2020September 18, 2021Brad Trumbo

What’s your first thought when someone mentions pollination or pollinators? Is it flowers? Bees? Honey? Allergies? A gambling man would put money on it being honey and honey bees (why wouldn’t it bee, right?). While none of us could fathom a life without honey, bee pollination is critical for the success of native plant reproduction and diversity, and food crop and fruit production.

Introduced worldwide, honey bees are a vital part of our ecosystem, and because of their succulent honey, they are most commonly recognized for pollination and conservation efforts. Commercial apiaries rent pollination services that benefit crop production and provide the apiary a honey crop. But when it comes to pollination effectiveness, honey bees will forever live in the shadow of our solitary natives.

Mason bee visiting a flower

North America boasts approximately 4,000 native bee species, ranging in size and shape from bumble bees to sweat bees, none of which build hives. Bumble bees comprise about 40 species and are quite obvious, yet the lesser known are easily confused with other less desirable flies. The mason bees.

Mason bees are aptly named for their reproductive habits. The female mason bee often occupies holes in wood with larvae secured behind mud plugs for safe development. Mason bees don’t excavate holes, rather they clean debris from suitable spaces, pack them with pollen that they carry in on their belly, and seal in an egg. The eggs of female offspring are deposited first, at the back of the space for protection from predators while male eggs are stacked in front. Eggs are laid in May, and larvae hatch and feed on the pollen until the following spring, when they emerge to complete their lifecycle.

A few common species like the blue orchard bee (Osmia lignaria) frequent our gardens and orchards, as well as our landscaped city blocks and urban homes. While some native species, like the emerald green sweat bee Agapostemon femoratus are obvious, mason bees are nondescript, dark colored or lightly striped, and smaller than honey bees. These are the bees that we see frequently but pay little mind or mistake for something else.

Blue orchard bee (photo by USGS)

Mason bees are docile and lead solitary lives. Since they only reproduce once each year, they don’t need extensive hives or honey production, but also forfeit the glamour of their extraordinary pollination abilities. A single mason bee can visit up to 2,000 flowers per day and just a few mason bees can pollinate the same number of fruit trees as thousands of honey bees. For this reason, the blue orchard mason bee is prized as one of the few native pollinators managed in agriculture.

Jim Watts, founder of Rent Mason Bees in Woodinville, Washington, knows the value and business of native mason bees. Rent Mason Bees offers a pollination service much like commercial apiaries, but Watts’ crop is not honey. Its more bees. Rent Mason Bees is devoted to making mason bees available for everyone from large-scale pollination needs such as commercial orchards, right down to a studio apartment, and everything in between. And the process begins with you.

At present, with a global pandemic threatening our food production capabilities at the national level, food security has invigorated many worldwide to seek homesteading opportunities. Farm and garden stores and mail order catalogs have seen baby chicks flying out the door, as well as seed sources exhausted by a fresh flush of gardeners eager to fill new beds, prepped while in social isolation, with the hope of eventually sustaining themselves to some degree. And, as those new vegetables and orchards begin to bloom, the pollination of native mason bees can bolster the bounty, simply through their effectiveness at visiting and fertilizing so many flowers.

So, where do you play into all of this? You guessed it. You can rent mason bees from Rent Mason Bees. Watts and his team have developed a precise system for providing healthy mason bees and bee houses to residential and farm owners for their pollination benefits. By providing bees and bee boxes designed to attract mason bees for egg laying, Watts’ team can collect the larvae at the end of the mason bee lifecycle as they lie dormant until the next spring.

Mason bee box provided to a residence by Rent Mason Bees

A brilliant, seven-minute documentary, The Bee Farmers, by filmmaker Steve Utaski, walks through the Rent Mason Bees process as they deliver bees and boxes for pollination, then collect, clean and store the larvae, which are encased in cocoons that look a little like coffee beans, in preparation for delivery the next year. The bee larvae that come from residential areas are distributed to interested large food crop producers where the bees ensure a healthy crop set to feed you, your family and our nation. As the cocoons are prepared for winter storage, the bee houses are sterilized and prepared for renting again the following season. By participating in the program, anyone has the ability to contribute to their personal and national food security and the success of local farm-to-table operations. And it doesn’t end there.

Watts’ operation propagates over 10 million native bees annually, contributing to the conservation of a desirable, local species that is presently experiencing population pressures from various land and chemical uses. At present, scientists estimate 25% of native bee species are on the brink of extinction. This makes the residential aspect of Watts’ mason bee operation so critical. With over 4,000 renters contributing cocoons, Rent Mason Bees ensures a fresh yield of pollinators each year.

The benefits of mason bee pollination and the logistics of Rent Mason Bees is captivatingly portrayed in The Bee Farmers to include the process of bee pollination and larvae deposition in stunning detail and story-telling. But Utaski’s attention to the ancillary benefit of community outreach and education, which Rent Mason Bees thrives on, is the most compelling aspect of the residential part of the program from, this biologist’s perspective.

Extracting cocoons from a bee box

Biologist Olivia Shangrow with Rent Mason Bees attends public events, spreading the word and encouraging new renters to take part in the mason bee lifecycle and conservation. Parents can host a bee box and teach their children about the importance of pollination while keeping tabs on when and how the females populate the boxes with eggs. Because mason bees don’t colonize to protect a sole queen, mason bees are non-aggressive and family safe. The program also lends itself well to larger community-based projects, be it a host community garden or a community event where neighbors come together as a team to rent bees for the community.

Utaski’s film portrays the meaning of this program to Seattle residents, yet captures another less apparent, yet critically important detail. Our society at present is strongly self-reliant. In the age of social media, community neighbors are generally less social with one another on a personal level than our grandparents and parents experienced. The development of community-based participation in the Rent Mason Bees program leads to cohesion and cooperation, and collective youth learning and social interaction, away from internet-based platforms, formal education or sports.

Cleaned cocoons being prepared for winter storage

Now is the time to reach out to Rent Mason Bees, as mason bee activity peaks in May. And like everyone else, Rent Mason Bees is feeling the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic and Washington’s “Stay at Home” order. Watts’ team is unable to conduct outreach and distribute mason bees effectively, but shipping is still an option. Bees need to find homes and farms where they can pollinate and have the opportunity to reproduce where the larvae can be collected. Otherwise, their 2020 offspring will be significantly reduced.

If you are on the fence, take a few moments to enjoy Steve Utaski’s The Bee Farmers, and read up on our native bees. They are a treasure to the nation, encouraging biodiversity and enhancing flower and vegetable gardens and fruit crops. Visit the U.S. Geological Survey, the Xerces Society and Rent Mason Bees to learn more.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: