Got Milkweed? FREE Summer Workshop For Educators. St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN. July 11-13, 2017. Monarch caterpillars only eat one kind of plant–milkweed. As monarch butterfly populations are declining and more people are planting milkweed, what is important to understand about this food source? This workshop introduces participants to a distributed research project designed to help students understand evolution and ecology through inquiry about milkweed plants while simultaneously gathering data.
Join us for hands-on demonstrations, activities, and information about installing and managing native habitat for monarchs and other wildlife on farms. We are offering a series of field days across Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Choose the date and location that works best for you! Field days are free! Pre-registration is requested. Topics Covered: Site selection and site prep methods for native plantings Seed mix design, planting methods, and management Native.
Iowa took a large step Monday toward helping the recovery of monarch butterflies, with the introduction of a strategy designed to help keep the threatened insects off the national endangered species list. The 135-page plan helps provide farmers, backyard gardeners and others with a road map for boosting monarch butterfly habitat in Iowa. Nearly 40 agriculture, conservation, business, utility and government groups, calling themselves the Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium, pulled.
Never underestimate the power of the bee brain. In the latest triumph for one of humanity’s favorite insects, bumblebees learned how to push a ball to the center of a platform for a sugary treat. That may not make them a threat on the chess board, but soccer or even Skee-Ball might be within their intellectual grasp — if it were scaled down in size, of course. The new research.
An area of woodlands measuring 2.91 hectares, occupied by 13 monarch butterfly colonies, was identified. This represents a 27.42% decrease from the 2015–2016 season, which accounted for 4.01 hectares. This is the first time Mexico has reported a small wintering colony established in the town of Real del Mar in Tijuana, Baja California Norte. more info here
Donald Trump has been accused of targeting Muslims, media outlets and even department stores in his first month in the White House. Now, the US president may have doomed a threatened bumblebee. An executive order freezing new regulations could push the rusty patched bumblebee towards extinction, environmental groups claim. The 60-day pause on all federal regulations that have yet to be implemented – which includes the bumblebee protection – will.
The Obama administration, rushing to secure its environmental legacy, has increased protection for a humble bumblebee. The rusty-patched bumblebee, once common across the continental United States, has been designated an endangered species by the Fish and Wildlife Service: the country’s first bumblebee, and the first bee from the lower 48 states, to be added to the register. Seven bees were previously listed as endangered, but they are found only in.
When we decided to go “all in” on monarch conservation, we knew we’d need the help of every U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service program. We have employees with expertise on the complexities of wildlife migration, we have employees skilled at partnering with other federal and state agencies and private landowners, we have employees who educate the American people, we have employees applying the best scientific research and tools available to.
WASHINGTON — General Mills, the Xerces Society, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture announce a major milestone in their partnership to restore and protect pollinator habitat across hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland in North America. The five-year, $4 million financial commitment between General Mills and USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) will support farmers across the U.S. by providing technical assistance to plant and protect pollinator habitat, such.
OMRO, Wis. — Monarch butterfly populations may be in decline, but an Omro dairy farm is one of a number of farms around the state working to help the butterflies flourish. Omro Dairy, which is owned by Kaukauna-based Milk Source, has established more than three acres of protective zones for Monarch butterflies around its farm on East Scott Street in Omro, the Oshkosh Northwestern (http://oshko.sh/29SJAol ) reported. Staff said they.
Honey bee colonies in the United States have been dying at high rates for over a decade, and agricultural pesticides — including fungicides, herbicides and insecticides — are often implicated as major culprits. Until now, most scientific studies have looked at pesticides one at a time, rather than investigating the effects of multiple real-world pesticide exposures within a colony. A new study is the first to systematically assess multiple pesticides.
It was apparent as early as late May that the migration, and the subsequent overwintering population, was going to be much lower this year than in 2015-2016. The projections outlined in the Blog post of 7 July have largely come true. read more here