OKLAHOMA CITY ( KFOR ) – It’s all hands-on deck to help the monarch butterfly’s dwindling population.
“It is a discussion that’s happening within the monarch world as well as at federal levels about whether or not the species needs to be listed as endangered,” post-doctoral researcher with the Oklahoma City Zoo Dr. Emily Geest said.
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Geest said the monarch’s population has been declining since the mid-nineties with boom-and-bust years in between. However, their numbers appear to be getting worse.
“This year, the numbers came out and they are the second lowest of all time and the lowest in the last ten years,” Geest said.
The Sooner State is a stop along the monarch’s migration to Mexico every year. This year, while tagging butterflies, they found the population dipped by a whopping 59 percent from last year.
“Habitat loss, pesticide use, climate change,” Geest said describing reasons for the dip.