{"id":20920,"date":"2025-10-08T12:09:58","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T19:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/?p=20920"},"modified":"2025-10-08T12:21:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T19:21:06","slug":"monarchs-and-milkweed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/2025\/10\/08\/monarchs-and-milkweed\/","title":{"rendered":"Help us plant THOUSANDS of native milkweed plants to save the western monarchs!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The western monarch population has reached a near record low. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Xerces Society, fewer than 10,000 butterflies were found overwintering in California during their annual monarch count last winter<\/a>\u2014the second lowest number recorded since tracking began in the 90s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, these beloved and essential pollinators face a myriad of threats<\/a> across their migratory range\u2014from climate change to pesticides to habitat loss. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s critical that we begin addressing these issues to prevent them from dying off completely\u2014and one of the easiest ways to start is by planting the native milkweed that serves as their host plant. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, TreePeople is working on planting more than 5,000 native milkweed plants across the Angeles National Forest<\/strong>, in an effort to increase western monarch habitat. Here’s how this will benefit monarch butterflies, and how you can help:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monarchs on the move<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In North America, there are two major monarch populations\u2014eastern monarchs and western monarchs. Here in California, the bright-orange butterflies you\u2019ll spot fluttering around this time of year are western monarchs, which migrate to coastal sites like Los Angeles from other parts of the western US in the fall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These monarchs travel to milder areas to overwinter and reserve resources for the breeding season ahead. And then, come spring, they set off in search of their favorite host plant\u2014milkweed<\/strong>\u2014so they can lay the next generation of eggs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Map courtesy of the Xerces Society.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Monarchs and milkweed\u2014a perfect match.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Monarchs and milkweed have co-evolved together for centuries. In fact, milkweed is the only<\/strong> plant that monarch caterpillars can eat\u2014and it gives them special protection from predators! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The latex in milkweed leaves contains compounds called cardiac glycosides, which are toxic to most animals\u2014but not monarchs. When the caterpillars feast on them, they also become toxic to other animals\u2014allowing them to grow up into beautiful butterflies that help pollinate milkweed in return! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s plant some milkweed! <\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Native milkweed species like Asclepias fascicularis <\/em>and Asclepias eriocarpa<\/em> are critical to monarchs\u2019 ability to breed and migrate in the west\u2014and we need to work together to make sure these plants are plentiful here in SoCal! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Want to help? Join us at our upcoming Monarch Milkweed Mash<\/a><\/strong> this October 18th<\/strong>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This will be our biggest milkweed planting event EVER, and it will be a lot of fun! In addition to creating new habitat for monarch butterflies and other pollinators<\/strong>, we\u2019ll be hosting a pollinator costume contest, <\/strong>giving away milkweed and coast live oaks, <\/strong>and presenting all kinds of other family-friendly, monarch-related educational activities!\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if you can\u2019t make the Monarch Milkweed Mash, don\u2019t worry\u2014there will be plenty of other opportunities to help us restore important monarch habitat. We\u2019ll be continuing to plant milkweed at ALL of our upcoming mountain forestry events, which you can sign up for on our volunteer page<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Funding for this project is provided by CAL FIRE and the National Fish & Wildlife Foundation with the support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grant F22AP03407.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The western monarch population has reached a near record low. According to the Xerces Society, fewer than 10,000 butterflies were found overwintering in California during their annual monarch count last winter\u2014the second lowest number recorded since tracking began in the 90s.  Unfortunately, these beloved and essential pollinators face a myriad of threats across their migratory… <\/p>\n

Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":20921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHelp us plant THOUSANDS of native milkweed plants to save the western monarchs! - TreePeople<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"TreePeople is planting more than 5,000 native milkweed plants across the Angeles National Forest, in an effort to increase monarch habitat.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/2025\/10\/08\/monarchs-and-milkweed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Help us plant THOUSANDS of native milkweed plants to save the western monarchs!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"TreePeople is planting more than 5,000 native milkweed plants across the Angeles National Forest, in an effort to increase monarch habitat.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/2025\/10\/08\/monarchs-and-milkweed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TreePeople\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/TreePeopleorg\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-08T19:09:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-08T19:21:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Untitled-design-70.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"700\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Zoie Matthew\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@TreePeople_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@TreePeople_org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Zoie Matthew\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/2025\/10\/08\/monarchs-and-milkweed\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/2025\/10\/08\/monarchs-and-milkweed\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Zoie Matthew\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/#\/schema\/person\/9dd7c0b4cff0fa0714eb847b13524aef\"},\"headline\":\"Help us plant THOUSANDS of native milkweed plants to save the western monarchs!\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-10-08T19:09:58+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-08T19:21:06+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/2025\/10\/08\/monarchs-and-milkweed\/\"},\"wordCount\":531,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/2025\/10\/08\/monarchs-and-milkweed\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Untitled-design-70.png\",\"articleSection\":[\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/2025\/10\/08\/monarchs-and-milkweed\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/treepeople.org\/2025\/10\/08\/monarchs-and-milkweed\/\",\"name\":\"Help us plant THOUSANDS of native milkweed plants to save the western monarchs! 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