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GoGreenNation news

US lost a fifth of its butterflies within two decades

News Feed
Thursday, March 6, 2025

US lost a fifth of its butterflies within two decades Maddie MolloyBBC Climate & ScienceJack CochranThe Danaus eresimus, commonly known as the soldier butterfly, is among the 20 butterfly species experiencing the steepest declineButterfly populations in the US shrank by more than a fifth within the space of two decades, according to a new study.Numbers fell by 22% between 2000 and 2020, according to research by Binghamton University in New York.A third of species saw serious decline, with some, like Julia's Skipper, losing more than 90% of their populations.However, the researchers say butterflies may be able to recover if urgent conservation measures are taken.The study published in the journal Science measured butterfly "abundance" - the number of individuals of a species within a specific area. It analysed 12.6 million butterfly sightings from 76,000 surveys across 35 monitoring programmes.This included data from citizen science programmes like the North American Butterfly Association's Fourth of July counts.Using statistical models, they estimated population trends for 342 species.The results showed that 33% were in significant decline, with many exhibiting extreme losses - 107 species declined by more than 50%."While the results aligned with global trends, seeing the extent of the decline at such a large spatial scale was sobering," said Prof Eliza Grames, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Binghamton University.Randy BodkinsThe West Virginia White (Pieris virginiensis) - a woodland butterfly - has declined in abundance by more than 98%Some of the most affected species include the Florida white, Hermes copper, tailed orange, Mitchell's satyr, and West Virginia white, all of which have declined in abundance by more than 98% within the US.The West Coast lady, once a common backyard butterfly, has declined by 80%, raising alarm as even this highly adaptable species struggled."That's alarming because it suggests even common butterflies aren't safe," Prof Grames said.Habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change are key causes of this decline, according to the researchers.Butterflies are crucial pollinators, supporting plants and crops. Experts say their decline could disrupt food production and entire ecosystems.They also serve as indicators of environmental health - when butterfly numbers fall, it signals trouble for other species.Southwest US most affectedSpecies are declining most severely in the US Southwest, one of the hottest and driest regions, researchers say. They believe drought may be a major contributor to these losses."Drought is a double threat - it harms butterflies directly and also affects their food and host plants," Prof Grames explained.The results could help drive important conservation efforts, such as prioritising species for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species and Endangered Species Act protection.Despite the decline, there is hope for recovery."Butterflies can recover quickly because they have short generation times. Small actions like planting wildflowers, reducing pesticide use, or even leaving part of a backyard unmowed can significantly improve their chances," Prof Grames said.She also stressed the need for government action."Insects are fundamental to life on earth, and we need conservation actions and policies that support insects."

However the researchers say butterflies may be able to recover if urgent conservation measures are taken.

US lost a fifth of its butterflies within two decades

Maddie Molloy

BBC Climate & Science

Jack Cochran A Danaus eresimus butterfly perched on a light purple flower. The butterfly has rich orange-brown wings with black veins and a black border adorned with white spots. Its body is black with small white speckles. The background is a lush green.Jack Cochran

The Danaus eresimus, commonly known as the soldier butterfly, is among the 20 butterfly species experiencing the steepest decline

Butterfly populations in the US shrank by more than a fifth within the space of two decades, according to a new study.

Numbers fell by 22% between 2000 and 2020, according to research by Binghamton University in New York.

A third of species saw serious decline, with some, like Julia's Skipper, losing more than 90% of their populations.

However, the researchers say butterflies may be able to recover if urgent conservation measures are taken.

The study published in the journal Science measured butterfly "abundance" - the number of individuals of a species within a specific area. It analysed 12.6 million butterfly sightings from 76,000 surveys across 35 monitoring programmes.

This included data from citizen science programmes like the North American Butterfly Association's Fourth of July counts.

Using statistical models, they estimated population trends for 342 species.

The results showed that 33% were in significant decline, with many exhibiting extreme losses - 107 species declined by more than 50%.

"While the results aligned with global trends, seeing the extent of the decline at such a large spatial scale was sobering," said Prof Eliza Grames, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Binghamton University.

Randy Bodkins A West Virginia White butterfly is perched on a cluster of small white flowers. The butterfly has delicate, white wings with a faint hint of veins visible. The plant has bright green, serrated leaves and a slender stem. The background is blurred, creating a soft contrast with the sharply focused butterfly and plant. Randy Bodkins

The West Virginia White (Pieris virginiensis) - a woodland butterfly - has declined in abundance by more than 98%

Some of the most affected species include the Florida white, Hermes copper, tailed orange, Mitchell's satyr, and West Virginia white, all of which have declined in abundance by more than 98% within the US.

The West Coast lady, once a common backyard butterfly, has declined by 80%, raising alarm as even this highly adaptable species struggled.

"That's alarming because it suggests even common butterflies aren't safe," Prof Grames said.

Habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change are key causes of this decline, according to the researchers.

Butterflies are crucial pollinators, supporting plants and crops. Experts say their decline could disrupt food production and entire ecosystems.

They also serve as indicators of environmental health - when butterfly numbers fall, it signals trouble for other species.

Southwest US most affected

Species are declining most severely in the US Southwest, one of the hottest and driest regions, researchers say. They believe drought may be a major contributor to these losses.

"Drought is a double threat - it harms butterflies directly and also affects their food and host plants," Prof Grames explained.

The results could help drive important conservation efforts, such as prioritising species for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species and Endangered Species Act protection.

Despite the decline, there is hope for recovery.

"Butterflies can recover quickly because they have short generation times. Small actions like planting wildflowers, reducing pesticide use, or even leaving part of a backyard unmowed can significantly improve their chances," Prof Grames said.

She also stressed the need for government action.

"Insects are fundamental to life on earth, and we need conservation actions and policies that support insects."

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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Banksy Unveils Two New Murals of Children Gazing Up at the Sky Days Before Christmas

Some onlookers are interpreting the identical artworks, which appeared on the streets of London, as a commentary on homelessness in the city

Banksy Unveils Two New Murals of Children Gazing Up at the Sky Days Before Christmas Some onlookers are interpreting the identical artworks, which appeared on the streets of London, as a commentary on homelessness in the city The new Banksy artwork near the Centre Point tower in London MEGA / GC Images via Getty Images Ahead of the holidays, Banksy has unveiled a new mural in London. The black-and-white image depicts two children in winter coats and hats, lying on their backs and gazing upward. The anonymous street artist posted a photo of the mural on his official Instagram account on December 22. The same image appeared in two locations: above a row of garages on Queen’s Mews in western London and outside the Centre Point tower in central London. Banksy only posted the Queen’s Mews mural online, but both have been attributed to him, per BBC News’ Aurelia Foster and Nicky Ford. The other new Banksy mural, located above a row of garages in western London Leon Neal / Getty Images The artist doesn’t typically offer information about the intent behind his works, but the new murals were “interpreted by some observers in the street art world as a statement on rising child homelessness in Britain,” per the New York Times’ Ephrat Livni. One of those observers is Daniel Lloyd-Morgan, an artist and Banksy fan. “Everybody is having a good time, but there are a lot of children who are not having a good time at Christmas,” he tells BBC News. Quick fact: Banksy’s Christmas murals In December 2019, the street artist unveiled a reindeer mural in Birmingham, England, that also appeared to comment on homelessness. Lloyd-Morgan thinks Banksy chose to paint the mural at Centre Point for a reason. The tower was built as an office building in 1966, but it sat empty for most of the following decade. In 1969, Reverend Ken Leech opened a shelter for homeless youths in a nearby church. Frustrated by the empty building towering over his neighborhood, Leech named his charity Centrepoint. In 1974, nearly 100 people occupied the empty Centre Point tower to protest rising homelessness in London, according to Hyperallergic’s Rhea Nayyar. Today, the tower is home to luxury apartments, offices and stores. According to government data released in October, about 170,000 children are currently unhoused in Britain—up from 70,000 in 2010. People walking by the mural were “ignoring it,” Lloyd-Morgan tells BBC News. “It’s a busy area. Quite poignant that people aren’t stopping. They walk past homeless people and they don’t see them lying on the street.” Banksy is known for his street art that doubles as social commentary. Many of his artworks, including a series of murals in Ukraine, feature anti-war themes. Some of his pieces have been interpreted as reflections on environmental conservation, domestic violence and refugees. In the new murals, one of the children is pointing skyward. “It’s kind of like they’re stargazing,” Lloyd-Morgan tells BBC News. Some onlookers think the artworks are commenting on children’s imaginations. As Artnet’s Jo Lawson-Tancred writes, “The classic Oscar Wilde line, ‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars,’ comes to mind.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.

Conservation
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‘Unashamedly capitalist’ rewilders claim ‘Moneyball’ approach could make millions - but experts sceptical

Rich Stockdale says model of ‘regenerative capitalism’ would maximise profits by planting trees, restoring peatlands, and installing windfarms across its estatesThe founder of an investment firm buying large estates across Britain to restore woods and peatland has said it is “unashamedly and proudly” capitalist, and plans to make tens of millions of pounds in profit.Rich Stockdale, the chief executive of Oxygen Conservation, said his model of “regenerative capitalism” was a “force for good” because it would offer investors significant profits by planting trees, restoring peatlands, operating solar farms and holiday homes and installing new windfarms across its estates. Continue reading...

The founder of an investment firm buying large estates across Britain to restore woods and peatland has said it is “unashamedly and proudly” capitalist, and plans to make tens of millions of pounds in profit.Rich Stockdale, the chief executive of Oxygen Conservation, said his model of “regenerative capitalism” was a “force for good” because it would offer investors significant profits by planting trees, restoring peatlands, operating solar farms and holiday homes and installing new windfarms across its estates.The Exeter-based firm, which has bought 13 estates in under four years, plans to rapidly become the UK’s largest private landowner by expanding its current landholding of 50,000 acres (20,234 hectares) over the next five years to 250,000 acres.“We are applying a capitalist model, unashamedly and proudly,” Stockdale said, on a tour of Oxygen’s estate at Dorback near Grantown-on-Spey in the Cairngorms.“We think releasing, activating and motivating more capital into this space is the only way we can scale conservation for the better of climate, wildlife, people and everyone concerned.”He said Oxygen Conservation was creating a new market for “premium” carbon credits because some wealthy private and institutional investors would pay much higher prices to store carbon in new woodlands or peatland if they included high environmental and social benefit.Rich Stockdale, who runs Oxygen Conservation Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The GuardianIts goal is to sell two million tonnes of carbon credits at well above the normal market rate, to prove that “regenerative capitalism” can work, he added.Stockdale likened his firm’s approach to the Brad Pitt movie Moneyball, in which a baseball coach used performance data to build a winning team. 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Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The GuardianCampaigners said withholding the sale price for a Highland estate is unusual, undermined transparency and risked concealing changes in the land market.Its biggest investors include Mike Dixon, a billionaire statistician who holds most of its shares, the self-styled ethical bank Triodos and Tony Bloom, a gambling billionaire who owns Brighton and Hove Albion FC. Bloom is currently being sued in a lawsuit alleging his gambling syndicate used “frontmen” to place bets. 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Biologists at the University of Costa Rica have uncovered 16 new species of leafhoppers after examining insect collections that sat untouched in museums for over three decades. The find also includes nine species newly recorded in the country, pushing the total known Scaphytopius species in Costa Rica to 29. Carolina Godoy and Andrés Arias-Penna led the research, starting their review in 2023. They pored over specimens from the University of Costa Rica’s insect museum and others held in U.S. institutions. “We looked at material stored for years and spotted many unidentified species in the Scaphytopius genus,” Godoy explained. “This led us to detail their taxonomy and confirm the new ones.” These leafhoppers, part of one of the planet’s largest insect families, feed on plants and jump like small cicadas. Adults measure under six millimeters, with younger stages even smaller. Though not widely recognized, they hold key positions in ecosystems and signal environmental conditions. The team pinpointed the new species in biologically rich spots across Costa Rica. Locations include La Selva Biological Station in Sarapiquí, humid Caribbean forests, the Osa Peninsula, and Talamanca’s mountains. Some names reflect local features or pay tribute to scientists: Scaphytopius vulcanus draws from Guanacaste’s Cacao Volcano, while S. hansoni honors biologist Paul Hanson. Others, like S. ancorus and S. viperans, evoke their distinct forms. Before this study, published in Zootaxa in September 2025, records of the genus in Costa Rica stopped at four species in 1982. The update fills a long-standing gap and shows how museum archives can yield fresh insights. Arias-Penna, who curates the UCR insect museum, noted that these insects might appear in everyday settings. “People could find them in their gardens without realizing,” he said. The discovery underscores Costa Rica’s role as a biodiversity hub, where protected areas still hide unknowns. Researchers stress that the actual number of species may exceed current counts, calling for continued exploration. Godoy and Arias-Penna’s work not only adds to global knowledge but also supports conservation efforts by highlighting overlooked groups. This breakthrough came from routine checks of old collections, proving that science advances through patient review. As Costa Rica protects its natural wealth, findings like these reinforce the need to study even the smallest inhabitants. The post Costa Rica Biologists Identify New Insect Species in Museum Collections appeared first on The Tico Times | Costa Rica News | Travel | Real Estate.

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Along the Texas Coast, a New Sanctuary Aims to Protect the Endangered and Rare Whooping Crane

Partners at the International Crane Foundation and The Conservation Fund have secured permanent protection of more than 3,300 acres of high-priority wintering habitat for whooping cranes near Port Aransas, Texas

WOLFBERRY WHOOPING CRANE SANCTUARY, Texas (AP) — Carter Crouch has been fascinated by the whooping crane’s conservation story for as long as he can remember. The white bird, named for its “whooping” call, is one of the rarest in North America and was among the first to be protected by the Endangered Species Act.It’s a story that began decades ago when they were on the brink of extinction. Today, more than 550 whooping cranes migrate from Canada to Texas in the winter. It's the last self-sustaining wild flock in the world.A new sanctuary aims to further protect them. The International Crane Foundation, The Conservation Fund and the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program announced Thursday the acquisition of more than 3,300 acres (1,336 hectares) of vital winter habitat for the whooping crane. Only 16 of the birds existed in Texas in the early 1940s, but thanks to decades of conservation work, they’ve rebounded. Still, more work remains as the birds face threats from urban development, climate change, infrastructure for planet-warming oil, gas and coal and more.Crouch, director of Gulf Coast programs for the International Crane Foundation, said the crane’s story is complicated with many successes and some setbacks, but all in all, conservationists have come a long way. “We have a long way to go still, so there’s a lot of story to be written, and I’m super excited to be a small part of that.” An imperiled species, threatened habitat Standing at about 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall, the whooping crane is the tallest bird in North America with wingspans of up to 7.5 feet (2.3 meters) wide, so they need large landscapes to live in. They're snowy white as adults with black wing tips and a red forehead. It's one of 15 crane species in the world across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North America — 10 of which are threatened with extinction. The last wild and self-sustaining flock of whooping cranes breeds and nests in the wetlands in and around Canada’s Wood Buffalo National Park before beginning their 45-day 2,500-mile (4,023-kilometer) southern migration each winter to forage and roost in and near Texas’ Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. The birds, which can live more than 20 years in the wild, mate for life and spend much of their lives raising families. Cranes around the world face numerous challenges. Poaching and poisons threaten some species, and the wetlands and grasslands they need to survive are disappearing. Since the 1970s, 35% of the world’s wetlands have been lost because of human activities, according to the United Nations. The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates the U.S. alone has lost at least 80% of its grasslands.Climate change is worsening the threats. Sea level rise can wipe out the low-lying coastal wetlands in Texas, and loss of permafrost due to warming is among their habitat threats in Canada. Changing rain patterns mean there's less wetland availability in the Great Plains and other regions. “Generally it’s just a really long-lived group of birds, so they’re pretty sensitive to some of these threats that we’re throwing at them,” Crouch said. A safe haven for whooping cranes and other species On a recent morning, after a thick fog cleared, Crouch and a team of scientists roared a boat aptly called Crane Seeker down a channel along the Gulf of Mexico to look for whooping cranes. They anchored the boat, pointed their spotting scope, and patiently observed the birds for nearly an hour, diligently jotting down every minute what they were doing. Flying. Wading in shallow water. Eating crabs or wolfberries.The federally endangered aplomado falcon and the threatened black rail bird also call this region home. The new sanctuary southwest of Houston is made up of two properties purchased for just over $8.4 million thanks to grants, fundraising and hundreds of donations. One property, named the Wolfberry Whooping Crane Sanctuary, will be owned and managed by the International Crane Foundation, and the other by The Conservation Fund until the Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program buys it off and ultimately owns it. The name is inspired by the Carolina wolfberry, a shrub that produces a small, red berry whooping cranes love to eat. It's found here in the coastal habitats of Texas, along with the blue crabs, mollusks and fish they also eat. Conservationists have a lot of work to do on the sanctuary. Much of the prairie has been overtaken by shrubs, so they'll be using prescribed burns and other means to restore the grassland. With the public's help, they'll also plant smooth cordgrass to improve the marshes and protect shorelines from erosion, which will also serve as storm buffers for nearby residents. Volunteers will also assist with the annual Christmas bird counts. And once the sanctuary is up and running, they hope to add guided tours and other educational events. A reliable place to see whooping cranes These protected lands near Texas’ Aransas National Wildlife Refuge are the only place in the U.S. where people can reliably see whooping cranes, said Julie Shackelford, Texas director for The Conservation Fund. It's a destination for birders worldwide, with visitors boosting the economies of nearby communities like Rockport and Port Aransas. In the winters, a “couple hundred people every day go out just to see the whooping crane” with their young, said Shackelford, a fellow bird enthusiast. She described helping to protect the land for future generations as “super gratifying.” Mike Forsberg knows these birds intimately. As a conservation photographer, he's spent countless hours over the years taking photos of North America's cranes, even publishing books about them. He has a podcast about whooping cranes, too, and just finished shooting a documentary. He calls himself a proud member of the growing “craniac community.” “The heart of keeping anything on the Earth ... has to do with making it personal to you, and cranes are just a great doorway in,” said Forsberg, a faculty member at the University of Nebraska. His 2024 book, “Into Whooperland: A Photographer’s Journey with Whooping Cranes” posed the question of whether these birds can survive a 21st century world. “Of course they can,” he said. “They’re resilient. But it’s up to us. And these habitats that are being protected now by the (International) Crane Foundation and by folks who just manage their land with a certain ethos ... that’s critical.”Pineda reported from Los Angeles.The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environmentCopyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – December 2025

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Conservation

The Kodiak Queen

Richard Branson had a decorated WWII warship that survived Pearl Harbor taken to the British Virgin Islands to be turned into an artificial reef and dive site to inspire a generation of ocean lovers. But the project became a part of something much bigger when Hurricane Irma struck the Caribbean and Florida Keys on September 6, 2017. Irma caused unimaginable destruction and devastated thousands of lives. In this haunting film, the award-winning Sorrenti and Academy Award winner Kate Winslet describe the momentous task of restoring the British Virgin Islands.

Water
Crisis
Conservation

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