Agreement: Monarch Butterfly to Get Endangered Species Act Protection Decision by 2019

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide by June 2019 whether to protect Monarch butterflies under the Endangered Species Act, per a court settlement reached with conservation groups.The settlement is the result of a federal complaint filed by the Center for Food Safety, Center for Biological Diversity and other groups, which have petitioned the agency to protect Monarch butterflies. The groups say populations have fallen by 80 percent in 20 years and could be wiped out if the government doesn't act. In March a study by the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that there is a substantial probability that the eastern monarch butterfly population could decline to such low levels that they face extinction. Researchers estimate that there is between 11 percent and 57 percent probability that the monarch migration could collapse within the next 20 years. In April Cornell researchers published a paper indicating that in addition to loss of summer milkweed, monarchs are threatened during the fall migration by multiple factors including habitat fragmentation, drought and insecticides.