Show Monarch Butterflies Some Love this Valentine’s Day
Will you be the monarch butterfly’s Valentine? If you will, we promise every heart will have a reason to flutter with joy. What could be better than helping rescue this beautiful and brave butterfly facing great perils?
Sadly, monarch populations plummeted by 90 percent in the two decades, victims of the loss of millions of acres of grasslands and the native milkweeds they need to survive. Without our love, they could easily go extinct.
Today you can take action to help save monarchs and other species at risk. Tell your representative in Congress to be the monarch butterfly’s Valentine by supporting the life-giving Recovering America’s Wildlife Act before it’s too late.Act Now
At this moment, monarch butterflies are resting in the high elevation forests of Michoacán, Mexico. Thousands upon thousands cloak a handful of fir trees in one of the world’s most stunning wildlife gatherings. Visitors quietly watch and revel at the shimmering, orange-gold clusters. On warm afternoons, the monarchs take flight and the air fills with the sounds of their wings, like rippling water.
Monarch butterflies fly south to escape long cold winters. To reach the favored trees in Mexico, these tiny creatures that weigh less than a cracker flap up to 250 miles a day—and some as far as 3,000 miles total. No wonder they need a long rest!
By Valentine’s Day, love is in the air at the winter roost. In these next weeks, the male and females will find each other and mate. By mid-March, they swirl into the air and depart.
Help Give Monarchs an Extra Lift
Can you help give them an extra lift for their journey north? Imagine if all of us could blow our collective breaths to help them fly easily our way! What monarchs really need is habitat and especially native milkweeds, where females lay their eggs, and caterpillars grow on their essential host plants.
It will take four generations of monarch butterflies to reach their most northern range in Eastern Canada by summer’s end. Miraculously, the last generation is born with superpower strength to fly all the way back to Mexico in one long migration—as long as they have native wildflower nectar along the way.
The monarch story reminds us of the irreplaceable wonders of nature. An act of love for monarchs is love for future generations to know and cherish this miraculous butterfly.
There is hope for the monarch butterflies and a third of all wildlife species in trouble. The Recovering America’s Wildlife Act would direct more than $1 billion to state-led conservation efforts that focus on early action to save wildlife at risk — rather than waiting until species like monarchs are on the brink of extinction.
The state-led approaches supported by the Recovering America’s Wildlife Act are proven. They are some of the best ways to save, restore, and create new habitat for monarchs and other species.
On February 14, a “Be Mine” Valentine’s card attached to a monarch butterfly plushie will be delivered to every single member of Congress. And we need your name on it.Act Now
Thank you for showing love to monarch butterflies and other species in jeopardy this Valentine’s Day!