March, 22 2023, 01:15pm EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Tierra Curry, Center for Biological Diversity, tcurry@biologicaldiversity.org
George Kimbrell, Center for Food Safety,
gkimbrell@centerforfoodsafety.org
New Eastern Monarch Butterfly Count Indicates Pollinator Still Threatened
Long-Term Decline of 90% Going Into Endangered Species Act Decision
The annual count of migratory monarchs that spend the winter in Mexico is once again dismal for the iconic orange-and-black butterflies. This year’s count showed a 22% decline from 2022, leaving the butterfly highly vulnerable to extinction.
The count found only 2.21 hectares of occupied forest. The total number of monarchs is 64% below the minimum threshold scientists say is necessary for the migrating pollinators to not be at risk of extinction in North America. Monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains have declined by around 90% since the mid-1990s.
“Despite heroic efforts to save monarchs by planting milkweed, we could still lose these extraordinary butterflies by not taking bolder action,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Monarchs were once incredibly common. Now they’re the face of the extinction crisis as U.S. populations crash amid habitat loss and the climate meltdown.”
Monarchs are currently on the candidate waiting list for Endangered Species Act protection. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a 2024 deadline to make a final listing determination.
At the end of summer, eastern monarchs migrate from the northern United States and southern Canada to high-elevation fir forests in central Mexico. Scientists estimate the population size by measuring the area of trees turned orange by the clustering butterflies. The annual count is conducted by Mexico’s National Commission of Natural Protected Areas and World Wildlife Fund Mexico. The eastern population has been perilously low since 2008.
“We petitioned for protection for monarchs nine years ago, but they still face an onslaught of pesticides and habitat loss,” said George Kimbrell, legal director at the Center for Food Safety. “This year’s count shows once again that they continue to urgently need Endangered Species Act protection. The Fish and Wildlife Service has already agreed to make a final decision; now they only need make the correct one, the one conservation, science and the law requires: protect monarchs.”
Monarchs are threatened by pesticides, climate change, loss of U.S. grasslands and illegal logging of the forests where they migrate for the winter. They are also threatened during their migrations by mortality from roadkill and habitat fragmentation.
Scientists led by the Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety petitioned the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the butterfly under the Endangered Species Act in 2014.
Monarchs have lost an estimated 165 million acres of breeding habitat in the United States to herbicide spraying and development in recent decades. The caterpillars only eat milkweed, but the plant has been devastated by increased herbicide spraying in conjunction with corn and soybean crops that have been genetically engineered to tolerate direct spraying. The butterflies are also threatened by neonicotinoid insecticides, fungicides and other chemicals that are toxic to young caterpillars.
Most monarch butterflies west of the Rocky Mountains overwinter on the central coast of California. Their numbers rebounded this year to more than 330,000 butterflies during Thanksgiving counts. But deadly storms led to a 58% drop, with only 117,000 butterflies surviving into January. Overall the western population is down more than 95% since the 1980s.
In Canada monarchs are slated for listing as endangered under the Species At Risk Act. In Mexico they are considered a species of special concern.
At the Center for Biological Diversity, we believe that the welfare of human beings is deeply linked to nature — to the existence in our world of a vast diversity of wild animals and plants. Because diversity has intrinsic value, and because its loss impoverishes society, we work to secure a future for all species, great and small, hovering on the brink of extinction. We do so through science, law and creative media, with a focus on protecting the lands, waters and climate that species need to survive.
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House to Take Up GOP Megabill Serving 'Oil Company CEOs, Hedge Fund Donors, and Climate Deniers'
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After U.S. Senate Republicans on Tuesday sent President Donald Trump's so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" back to the House of Representatives, defenders of the planet sounded the alarm on several provisions that remain in the massive budget reconciliation package.
"This is a vote that will live in infamy," said Greenpeace USA deputy climate program director John Noël after Vice President JD Vance broke a tie to advance the legislation. "This bill is what happens when a major political party, in the grips of a personality cult, teams up with oil company CEOs, hedge fund donors, and climate deniers. All you need to do is look at who benefits from actively undercutting the clean energy industry that is creating tens of thousands of jobs across political geographies."
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Although Sen. Mike Lee's (R-Utah) provision to force the sale of public lands as well as a proposed excise tax on wind and solar projects were removed, other controversial policies survived, including required onshore and offshore fossil fuel lease sales, mandates for timber harvesting, the recision of various Inflation Reduction Act funding, an end to a moratorium on new coal leasing, and attacks on clean energy.
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Jealous celebrated that public outrage led to the federal land sales and excise tax provisions getting axed, but added that "even with those important changes, a terrible bill is still a terrible bill, and this proposal fails the American people in every measure."
Margie Alt, director of the Climate Action Campaign, also highlighted how the legislation—if signed into law—will benefit rich individuals and corporations while causing working-class Americans to lose their jobs and pay higher energy bills.
"The Senate has turned its back on our clean energy future, raising our utility bills while mortgaging our health and environment to deliver massive tax breaks for billionaires," Alt said. She warned of job losses and increased climate pollution, meaning "kids will struggle with asthma and other respiratory problems. And, more people will suffer from devastating extreme weather catastrophes."
Manish Bapna, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, similarly said that "with spiking power demand and rising bills, we need more clean, affordable American energy, but Senate Republicans just voted to kill jobs and deliver the largest utility bill increase in U.S. history."
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After 27 hours, Republicans passed their Big Ugly Bill—a catastrophic assault on health care, food, and climate.They chose Trump and billionaires over families and our future.This fight isn't over. Now it’s the House’s turn to stop it.We can't agonize—we must organize.
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— Senator Ed Markey (@markey.senate.gov) July 1, 2025 at 1:22 PM
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The GOP-controlled House had already passed a version of the megabill before every Senate Republican but Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Rand Paul (Ky.), and Thom Tillis (N.C.) advanced the latest edition on Tuesday. Now, the lower chamber's leaders plan to take up the new version in hopes of sending it to Trump's desk by his July 4 deadline.
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A federal judge on Tuesday blocked planned mass layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services while declaring that the firings were likely unlawful.
Judge Melissa DuBose of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island ruled that the Trump administration exceeded its legal authority when it moved to lay off thousands of HHS employees on the grounds that such large-scale firings would leave the agency unable to fulfill its legislatively mandated duties that can only be altered by an act of Congress.
"The executive branch is vested with the power and is imbued with the responsibility to faithfully execute the laws which govern the governance structure of our country," wrote DuBose. "The executive branch does not have the authority to order, organize, or implement wholesale changes to the structure and function of the agencies created by Congress."
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The judge granted a preliminary injunction against the agency and blocked it from carrying out its planned reduction in staffing that it first announced this past March 27. HHS has until July 11 to file a status report affirming compliance with the court's order.
The lawsuit was originally filed by the attorneys general of 19 states plus the District of Columbia, who alleged that the layoffs violated the United States Constitution's separation of powers doctrine, as well as the Constitution's appropriations clause and the Administrative Procedure Act that prohibits agencies from taking "arbitrary and capricious" actions.
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By the thinnest possible margin, the U.S. Senate voted Tuesday to pass a budget that includes the largest cuts to Medicaid and nutrition assistance in U.S. history while giving trillions of dollars of tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans.
The deciding vote was Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who admitted she didn't like the bill. However, she voted for it regardless after securing relief for her home state from some of its most draconian cuts.
But in an interview immediately afterward, she acknowledged that the rest of the country, where millions are on track to lose their healthcare coverage and food assistance, would not be so lucky.
"Do I like this bill? No," Murkowski told a reporter for MSNBC. "I try to take care of Alaska's interests. I know that in many parts of the country there are Americans that are not going to be advantaged by this bill. I don't like that."
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In recent days, Murkowski—a self-described "Medicaid moderate"—expressed hesitation about signing onto a list of such devastating cuts, calling the vote "agonizing". To get her on board, her Republican colleagues were willing to give her state some shelter from the coming storm.
As David Dayen explained in The American Prospect, Murkowski was able to secure a waiver that exempts Alaska from the newly implemented cost-sharing requirement that will force states to spend more of their budgets on SNAP.
In The New Republic, Robert McCoy described it as a "bribe."
Initially, Republicans attempted to simply write in a carve-out for Alaska and Hawaii. But after this was shot down by the Senate parliamentarian, they tried again with a measure that exempted the 10 states with the highest error rates.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) called it "the most absurd example of the hypocrisy of the Republican bill."
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Murkowski also got a tax break for Alaskan fishing villages inserted into the bill. She attempted to have Alaska exempted from some Medicaid cuts as well, but the parliamentarian killed the measure.
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