Kudos to our friends at The Xerces Society for joining forces with other experts in filing a legal request with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to add the Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) to the Endangered Species Act. This process takes several years normally so prepare to wait! I was pleased to see they added a “request that the USFWS pass a special rule, called a 4(d) rule, that will allow scientific research, citizen tagging and monitoring, milkweed production, and non-commercial rearing in classrooms and households to continue and not to be considered as “take” or harm.” We are very familiar with the “take” legality given our constant work with the federally threatened Piping Plover, and continuing to permit those educational and citizen science activities is essential. Even this process is significant in that it can help the Monarch achieve an even loftier status as a symbol for conservation to everyone in North America and around the world.
