The fate of this beloved American creature is in Trump’s hands

In late 2021, I stood in a forest about two hours from Mexico City and watched as a river of butterflies passed overhead. They were monarchs — the iconic, Halloween-colored butterflies — and they were coming here from the US to rest for the cold winter months. 

Nearly all of the monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains spend winter in this one forest in Mexico. They often fly more than 2,000 miles to get here, pollinating plants as they go. And by December, there are tens of millions of them in the branches of native fir trees, which droop under their weight. Scientists believe the trees provide just the right temperature and humidity for the butterflies to survive winter before they return north.

While monarchs here seem hyper-abundant — I remember having to watch my step around puddles to avoid crushing them — their species is in decline. Scientists assess US monarch populations each winter by measuring the area they occupy in this fur grove in Mexico, and by counting butterflies in coastal California, where monarchs west of the Rockies spend winter.

The results from these assessments, shown in the graphs below, speak for themselves.

In Mexico, for example, the number of acres occupied by monarchs has fallen from an average of about 21 for the first 10 years of monitoring (1993 to 2002) to about 4.4 this past winter. Scientists have linked these staggering losses — part of a broader collapse of butterfly populations across the US — to the destruction of grasslands, insecticides, and drought caused in part by climate change. 

“There’s a very clear decline in Mexico, which is where most of our monarchs go,” said Karen Oberhauser, one of the nation’s leading monarch experts and professor emeritus at University of Wisconsin Madison.

That decline underpins a proposal by the Biden administration announced late last year to grant monarch butterflies protection under the Endangered Species Act. The ESA is the strongest wildlife law in the country and one of the strongest in the world.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service, a government agency that oversees the ESA, proposed to list monarchs as threatened, a formal designation meaning they’re likely to soon become at risk of extinction. If finalized, that proposal would make it a federal crime to kill or harm monarchs, with many important exceptions. It would also require that federal agencies make sure their actions, such as permitting a gas pipeline or wind farm, don’t endanger the insects.

This proposal is a big deal — monarchs are among the most recognizable and beloved animals in the US — and a long time coming. Environmental advocates have been urging the government to list them for more than a decade. 

With the Trump administration in power, however, the fate of those protections now hangs in the balance. 

Unlike most threatened species, which occupy only a portion of the country, monarchs are found everywhere: forests, cities, suburbs, backyards, farmland, abandoned lots, the side of highways, not to mention classrooms, wedding ceremonies, and home terrariums. They also migrate between three countries, some fluttering all the way to Canada in the late spring. That makes granting these butterflies federal protection incredibly complicated, said Kristen Voorhies, a former wildlife biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service who worked on monarch conservation. Any regulation to protect them could affect a lot of people — and a lot of powerful industries, including farming and oil and gas. 

In the years leading up to the proposal, some people inside the Service were worried that listing the monarch “was going to break the Endangered Species Act,” a current employee with the Fish and Wildlife Service who’s familiar with monarch conservation told me. The employee spoke with Vox on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

And that was before President Donald Trump stepped back into office.

The prospect of conserving wildlife has dramatically narrowed. Trump and Republicans in Congress are already moving to weaken the Endangered Species Act and remove protections for some listed species, such as gray wolves, grizzlies, and lizards. Among other actions that worry environmentalists, Trump revived a panel of top government officials called the Endangered Species Committee — sometimes called the “God Squad” — which has special authority to essentially veto wildlife protection to approve federal projects. His administration is also trying to limit the scope of what it means to harm an endangered species.

The monarch butterfly’s status, meanwhile, is in limbo. The government is still accepting comments from the public on the proposed listing, and it has until late next year to finalize the rule — i.e., to determine whether the species will officially be protected. 

Under Trump, the Fish and Wildlife Service could ultimately decide not to list the monarch — something representatives of the oil and gas industry have already asked the Service to consider — though they’d likely have to provide a reason that could stand up in court. This is certainly possible, according to Voorhies and Martha Williams, who led the Service under former President Joe Biden. Doug Burgum, Trump’s secretary of the Interior, the umbrella agency under which the Fish and Wildlife Service sits, has described federal rules to protect wildlife as a “legal weapon” used to “block our nation’s progress.”

“All bets are off with this administration,” Williams told me.

If the Trump administration does decide to protect monarchs there will be other concerns. A big one pertains to the workforce: Will the government have enough employees to actually carry out a conservation plan for monarchs? A number of senior employees within the Fish and Wildlife Service are accepting the Trump administration’s buyout offer. And there’s a general fear within the agency that layoffs are coming, even though many indiscriminately fired probationary workers have been reinstated. 

Another, deeper concern is that federal protections for the monarch could fuel a narrative that something as dainty as a butterfly is standing in the way of economic development and industries all around the country. Environmentalists worry that conservatives in Congress who want to weaken the Endangered Species Act will use that argument to try and strip down the law. Some of the groundwork has already been laid. Republican Reps. Dan Newhouse and Bruce Westerman, for example, have introduced legislation to alter the Endangered Species Act, which environmental advocates say would gut the wildlife protections it affords.

In drafting the proposal, the Fish and Wildlife Service worked hard to get ahead of this concern, according to the current employee. The aim, they said, was to create protections that minimize the burden on people and companies, especially if they’re doing something to conserve monarch habitat. The proposal allows for a large number of activities that could harm the insects, including things like livestock grazing, farming on land that’s already farmland, and doing managed burns. None of these actions would be forbidden. People would also still be able to sell and collect a limited number of monarchs. Accidentally killing them with cars would be fine, too. Plus, dozens of energy companies and other organizations that already voluntarily conserve monarchs would be exempt from needing to take additional actions. 

“The exemptions are really, really, really broad,” said Emma Pelton, senior endangered species conservation biologist at Xerces Society, a nonprofit group dedicated to protecting insects. “Hopefully that eliminates some of the general public pushback.” 

(The proposal doesn’t specify if or how the government will aim to restrict pesticides that harm monarchs — what Pelton describes as the “elephant in the room.” The Service, instead, requested input from the public. It’s worth noting, however, that pesticides aren’t regulated by the Service but by the Environmental Protection Agency, another agency that could see steep cuts.)

The Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment.

Ultimately, Williams says, the Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to strike a very difficult balance: Do enough to stop the decline of species without doing too much that it fuels anti-ESA sentiment at a time when wildlife protections are incredibly vulnerable.    

“Maybe — and maybe I’m completely naive — we could actually land a final listing, and without breaking the Endangered Species Act,” the current employee said.

Whether or not monarchs are formally protected, these animals are lucky compared to the thousands of other threatened species in the US. Everyone loves them. They’re beautiful butterflies! And so monarchs have countless advocates outside the walls of the White House and Congress, including state wildlife agencies, nonprofits, and private citizens, who have been working for years to restore monarch habitat, such as by doing something as simple as planting milkweed. 

 “The American public values monarchs to the tune of billions of dollars,” said Wayne Thogmartin, a scientist and monarch expert at the US Geological Survey. Thogmartin led a study, published in 2013, that found that US households would be willing to spend as much as $6.6 billion of their own money to conserve monarchs. “The majority of U.S. households believe monarchs and their conservation are important,” the paper concludes.

The other bit of good news for monarchs is that pretty much everyone can help. Including you. All you need is a bit of outdoor space, like a stoop, balcony, or yard, or access to a nearby garden or public green space. Then just plant some native milkweed, even in a pot, which monarch caterpillars need to survive. “If we don’t have milkweed, we won’t have monarchs,” Wendy Caldwell, who leads the Monarch Joint Venture, a coalition of organizations working on monarch conservation, told me. 

Better yet, plant milkweed and other native flowers. Adult butterflies use nectar in wildflowers to refuel on their way to Mexico and California and back. “The beauty of monarchs is that everybody has a role to play,” Williams said.