Saving Idaho Monarchs

NRCS Idaho Communications Specialist Mindi Rambo sent me an e-mail. "One of the interesting things I noted was the monarch butterfly. I just did a couple of stories on these I think endangered very important pollinators. Is that what this is about.

This is to help support our state insect. The monarch butterfly who did suffer a catastrophic, well it seems to be catastrophic for at least this year a population decline. They lost about 85 percent of the population that over winter in California. So we're doing our best to encourage agricultural producers to plant habitat in areas where it works for them that provide important nectar producing plants for Monarch butterflies as well as the milkweed that they need to lay eggs on. The great thing about pollinator habitat though is that monarch butterfly specific habitats also benefit other types of pollinators although not all pollinator habitats are great for monarchs. Pollinating plants will certainly help endangered bees for example. Oh absolutely. And our native bee species have been in decline for a number of years and it's of a concern to many of our partner organizations including the Xerxes society who watch those things closely and have all kinds of information available to the public to help them determine what kinds of plants are important."

Not only important but critical to all of Idaho agriculture.