LBCC horticulture student sells milkweed to alleviate declining monarch butterfly population

Decades ago, visitors to the El Dorado Nature Center in Long Beach would have been able to see eucalyptus trees with branches completely covered in western monarch butterflies during the fall and winter months.

“We haven’t seen a heavy migration in at least eight years,” said Meaghan O’Neill, Community Services Supervisor for the El Dorado Regional Park and Nature Center.

While a western monarch may still flit through the nature center occasionally, the large swarms that once filled the trees are no more.

“We still get monarchs in the area, but not to where they would actually cluster on trees,” O’Neill said.

The same dramatic decrease in western monarch populations has taken place all across California, where the orange-and-black butterfly would historically gather to spend the winter. 

According to the Xerces Society, in the 1980s, an estimated 4.5 million western monarchs spent the winter in California and Baja, Mexico. Last year in 2020, only 2,000 western monarchs were counted, less than 0.01% of their former population.

Although their harsh decline is not fully understood, there are believed to be numerous contributing factors including pesticide use, climate change, and the loss and degradation of habitats.

“Due to human development in the Los Angeles Basin and San Fernando Valley, a huge amount of grassland, oak woodland, and riparian habitat[s] that historically supported a variety of plants and animals, including milkweed and western monarchs, [have] been transformed to support the massive human population of Los Angeles County,” Richard Rachman, Los Angeles Regional Coordinator for the Western Monarch Count, said in an email to the Signal Tribune.

Milkweed is the only plant western monarch butterflies lay their eggs on, and its leaves serve as their caterpillars’ only food source for the first weeks of life.

“That’s one of the reasons the butterfly loss has been so drastic, because the only plant they have to lay their eggs on has pretty much gone missing,” Jason Steinhauser, a horticulture student at Long Beach City College, said.

To combat the loss of habit suffered by both native varieties of milkweed and western monarch butterflies, Steinhauser took action. For the past year, he has been focusing on growing and selling narrow leaf milkweed to community members.

The narrow leaf milkweed grown and sold by Steinhauser is one of the varieties native to Southern California, and is crucial to the survival of western monarchs.

Not all milkweed plants are the same, and planting the wrong kind can potentially do more harm than good to the monarch butterfly population.

“The ones you buy at Lowe’s and Home Depot […], that’s a tropical variety. And the problem with that is it doesn’t die back to the ground,” Steinhauser said.

Because the plant lives longer, parasites are able to build up in the leaves, eventually stunting the growth of any caterpillars that eat them.

The narrow leaf milkweed sold by Steinhauser once grew abundantly across California, in spaces now occupied by manicured lawns and imported plants.

As human society continues to encroach on natural habitats in California, conservationists recommend that people take steps to replenish the native population of milkweed if they want to save the western monarch.

“I would recommend planting it in every yard,” Steinhauser said.

Rachman also suggested that local residents grow native milkweed varieties in their yards, or in containers if they only have access to balconies or paved ground.

According to Rachman, the main varieties of milkweed native to Los Angeles County are: narrow leaf milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis), Californian milkweed (Asclepias californica) and woolly-pod milkweed (Asclepias eriocarpa).

Even when growing native milkweed varieties, location is important: growing a native variety in the wrong place can be just as harmful to monarchs as planting imported milkweed varieties.

“Not right on the coast, but a couple miles inland it should be everywhere,” Steinhauser said.

The temperate climate found close to the beach will also cause native milkweed to live longer than they normally would inland, and they can experience a similar build-up of parasites as tropical milkweed varieties in these cases.

Western monarchs also need access to fresh water, and won’t lay their eggs on a plant that doesn’t have close access to a water source, according to Steinhauser.

Ensuring western monarchs still have native milkweeds to lay their eggs is an important step in preserving the species.

“Otherwise our great grandkids are never going to see these monarch butterflies. It’ll be something we talk about like woolly mammoths and saber tooth tigers,” Steinhauser said. “They existed, but they’re gone now.” 

Those who wish to purchase narrow-leaf milkweed can contact Steinhauser by messaging his Instagram, @heyitsjaystein