CA monarch butterfly count yields worrisome finding

For the past three years, more than 200,000 western monarch butterflies spent their winters along the California coast — huddling together in tall tree groves, finding respite from the wind from November to February. 

But this winter, volunteers from the Xerces Society, a nonprofit environmental group, tallied just 9,119 western monarchs — a dramatic 95% plunge and the second-lowest recording since the count first began in 1997. While the butterfly’s population has been declining for years, the finding still has some biologists and California park advocates worried.

• Randy Widera, director of programs for California State Parks Foundation: “No matter where you come from in California, monarchs are around. … The thought of them being gone is heartbreaking.”

Habitat loss, pesticides and severe weather due to climate change are some of the reasons the butterflies are under threat. The atmospheric rivers in 2023, for example, caused their numbers to dip. The Palisades Fire also burned vegetation at Lower Topanga Creek in Topanga State Park that supplies nectar to the butterflies, said California State Parks spokesperson Jorge Moreno in an email to CalMatters.

Western monarch butterflies are considered an iconic species because of their beloved status among the public and for their critical role in the food web, said Emma Pelton, a biologist at the Xerces Society. Besides being pollinators, they’re food for birds, insects and some mammals.

Their migration also attracts visitors to California state beaches, particularly in Santa Cruz and Oceano. Moreno estimates that over 80,000 people visit sites including Pismo State Beach’s monarch grove per year.

California lawmakers have passed laws to protect the species: A decade ago, the state directed the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to conserve the butterflies and their habitats; and in 2018 the state established the Monarch and Pollinator Rescue Program.

But advocates are pushing for monarch butterflies to be listed as a threatened species under the federal Endangered Species Act, which would provide further protections and perhaps help restore the population to how it was decades ago, when Widera first began counting the butterflies.

• Widera: “It was like walking into a cathedral. … As it would warm up, (the butterflies) would burst out of their clusters and go out to feed. It would just be amazing — thousands of them flying all around you. It’s hard to explain the feeling.”

In addition to hospitals across the country suspending gender-affirming services after President Donald Trump issued an executive order last week banning federal funding for transgender health services for minors, a California health clinic is reporting the termination of a federal grant that was intended to support its transgender health program.

As CalMatters’ Kristen Hwang explains, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pulled the plug on a $1.6 million grant that enabled St. John’s Community Health in Los Angeles to treat transgender adults, which included HIV testing and connecting patients to social services such as food stamps.

The head of the clinic, Jim Mangia, said he intends to file a lawsuit to halt the withholding of federal money. But the dispute illustrates how Trump’s mandates can affect transgender health care in the state going forward.

• Mangia: “You can disagree with quote-unquote gender ideology and how people may choose to live their lives, but that doesn’t give you the right to strip away their access to health care.”

Read more here.

Following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year granting local governments more power to clear homeless encampments, dozens of cities across California have passed new measures banning encampments or updating existing ordinances to make them more punitive.

That includes the Bay Area city of Fremont, reports CalMatters’ Marisa Kendall. On Feb. 11, its city council is expected to vote on a measure that would make “causing, permitting, aiding, abetting or concealing” an illegal encampment a misdemeanor, and possibly subject to a $1,000 fine and six months in jail.

The proposal is alarming some homelessness advocates who argue that it could be used to target aid workers. Vivian Wan, the chief executive officer of the city’s primary nonprofit homeless services provider, Abode Services, says her biggest concern is that police will use the ordinance to pressure outreach workers into disclosing encampment locations.

• Wan: “I can’t imagine doing the hard work that’s both physically and emotionally draining and then also have to be worried about your own legal liability. It’s incredibly frustrating.”

Fremont Mayor Raj Salwan told CalMatters that police won’t target outreach workers handing out food and clothing. But what about, say, helping to pitch a tent? 

• Salwan: “That’s a good question. I think we may have to seek clarification from the city attorney.”

Read more here.