A Wisconsin group working to protect monarch butterflies says it will keep trying to improve the insect’s habitat despite being concerned about a recent agreement with the federal government.
A deal reached this month between national conservation groups and The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gives the federal government until 2019 to decide whether the monarch butterfly will receive Endangered Species Act protection.
Barb Agnew of the Wauwatosa-based group Friends of the Monarch Trail said three years may be too long.
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“Because they still need to put things in place after that, that are going to have help remedy the situation. And as we saw this spring, this one freak storm threw their numbers into a tailspin again,” she said.
That ice storm in Mexico may have killed hundreds of thousands of monarch butterflies. Agnew said she hopes landowners won’t wait for an endangered species ruling to put in milkweed and other butterfly-friendly plants.
About 45 volunteers for the Friends of the Monarch Trail recently planted about 1,200 plants during a work session near Interstate 41 in Wauwatosa.
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