Stuy Cove Park was designated as a Monarch Way Station more than a decade ago, and we’ve had as many as four native milkweeds growing in the park at a time. These amazing pollinators, which famously undertake an epic migration from Canada to Mexico each year, have been seeing their numbers drastically decline as over the past 30 years or so.
Now the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has placed the North American Monarch, on its list of endangered species. IUCN is considered the world’s most authoritative wildlife monitoring organization.
However, while the future of this wonderful creature is uncertain, it is far from hopeless, and unlike the conservation of more exotic species, there’s a lot that ordinary people can do to help restore Monarch butterfly populations before it’s too late.