The numbers of wild butterfly species, especially the famous monarch butterfly, is dropping so alarmingly fast that the federal government, through the Fish & Wildlife Service, has actually stepped in to help.
On Thursday, the FWS announced a plan to spend $4 million on revitalizing the monarch population, which has sunk from around a billion in 1996 to just more than 50 million this past year. That plan involves planting milkweed, the strange, oozing pod-like weeds that the monarchs need to feed, as well as trying to preserve the grasslands in which the milkweed grows.
The monarch is in danger of becoming the next scimitar-horned oryx: an animal previously widespread that’s now extinct in the wild. And like the oryx, an antelope-type animal that’s common in zoos, the monarch is still thriving when in a protected, closed environment. In the case of the monarch, that means farms. Yep, there are dozens of butterfly farms, all around the country, dedicated to breeding (and sometimes protecting) the quickly vanishing monarch.
“It is a lot of hard work and can be stressful, but it is also very rewarding,” says Jodi Hopper, a butterfly farmer who runs Wish Upon a Butterfly, based in Pennsylvania. Hopper raises mainly monarchs and painted ladies, but also breeds a few varieties of swallowtails and several other species. Her farm is a business, but an unusual one: the butterflies aren’t bred for food, or for conservation, but for release at celebratory events like weddings and quinceañeras.