MILKWEEDS & MONARCHS: A new citizen science project to 
help monarch butterflies and their food source; ahead on 
Passport to Texas. 

This is Passport to Texas

Why are monarch butterflies declining? 

06 -- The current thought is that it is actually several different 
factors that are contributing to the decline that we're seeing.

Ben Hutchins is Texas Parks and Wildlife's invertebrate 
biologist. Deforestation of the species' winter roosts in 
Mexico, unusually cold winters, and prolonged drought 
along their migratory path, all had negative effects. 

13 -- And then, finally, what this project is addressing is this 
widespread decline in availability of milkweed plants. That's due 
to a couple things: predominantly increased use of certain 
herbicides.

Texas Milkweeds and Monarchs is a new citizen science 
project where folks keep an eye out for the state's 38 
different species of milkweeds -vital to the monarch's 
lifecycle - and then then share their observations on the 
website iNaturalist.com. 

21 -- We have experts that are going to be looking at these 
observations and identifying those. We're also working on a 
guide to Texas milkweeds, and that guide is going to be freely 
available online. It's going to have pictures of all of the different 
species of milkweeds, distribution maps -- so you know if you're 
in the right part of the state -- and also some of the key 
characteristics. 

How you can get involved helping monarchs - that's 
tomorrow. 

For Texas Parks and Wildlife ... I'm Cecilia Nasti. 






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