NWF View: Threatened Monarchs Need Our Help

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed listing monarchs as threatened, and we all have to pitch in, says NWF President & CEO Collin O’Mara

By Collin O’Mara
Conservation
Mar 26, 2025

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed a threatened listing for monarchs, such as this one alighting on blazing star.

AS A KID, I REMEMBER READING about the monarch’s magnificent metamorphosis and multigenerational migration in Ranger Rick^®. The magazine said monarchs needed more habitat, so my mom and I found native milkweed seeds to plant in our backyard. When monarchs appeared within a few months, I was spellbound.

I’m not alone. The monarch butterfly’s iconic orange and black wings were once a familiar sight in nearly every green space across the country, thanks in part to its incredible two-way migration. Populations east of the Rocky Mountains travel thousands of miles from Mexico to Canada and back over four generations, while most monarchs west of the Rockies journey between California and other western states.

Those annual migrations are dependent on vast, interconnected swaths of land—land that is disappearing due to habitat loss and fragmentation, climate change and harmful pesticide use. (Read more about pesticide impacts.) In the last 30 years, eastern monarchs have decreased by more than 80 percent, and the population west of the Rockies has decreased by more than 95 percent. This tragic decline has led the federal government to take action.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which monitors changes in species populations and habitats, in December proposed listing the monarch as threatened under the Endangered Species Act—a tool that has helped prevent extinctions and fostered the recovery of species including the bald eagle. This listing will bring resources, research, coordination and awareness to the fight to save the migratory monarchs that otherwise could disappear by 2084.

But we all have to pitch in. We can plant native nectar plants and milkweed—the sole food source for monarch caterpillars—in our gardens, schoolyards and parks. (Please visit NWF’s gardenforwildlife.com to buy appropriate plants for your region.) We’ll continue to work with farmers, ranchers and landowners to implement conservation practices that balance agricultural needs with monarch recovery. And policy-makers must further support monarchs, and all wildlife, with legislation such as the MONARCH Act, the North American Grasslands Conservation Act and the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act in the name of proactive species recovery.

The monarch listing represents a crucial step, but only if we each step up and help. Together, we can save the monarchs. Their future is in our hands.