Audubon International creates monarch habitat

Originally published here: https://www.readingeagle.com/living/home/audubon-international-creates-monarch-habitat-on-golf-courses/article_8acd0884-4913-11ea-912b-9bd12c0fa1f9.html

This is not your Grandpa's golf course.

Today, updated management practices use integrated pest control management instead of chemicals to control weeds, attention is given to reducing water usage and butterfly preserves are thriving amid the golfers.

Audubon International and the Environmental Defense Fund have partnered to create Monarchs in the Rough, a program that creates monarch butterfly habitat in out-of-play areas on golf courses across North America.

This initiative gives free, regionally-appropriate milkweed seeds to golf courses, enough to plant at least one acre of new habitat and technical assistance to get the seeds started.

The "rough" refers to less-maintained areas in and around golf courses.

Launched in 2018, the Monarch in the Rough initiative includes 650 golf courses, creating more than 900 acres of butterfly habitat that stretch from Canada to Mexico.

Golf properties occupy 2.3 million acres across the country, but use only 30 percent of that area for the actual game, giving them ample opportunities to establish plantings for butterflies, said Marcus Gray of Audubon International, Monarch in the Rough program manager.

"We're working hard to change the image of golf courses, as they are often the last remaining open space in many communities," Gray said. "We need as much habitat for butterflies as we can get, and this is a concerted effort to save and protect these butterflies."

Situation dire

Within a generation, the situation for the monarchs had become dire.

"The monarch population has declined by 90 percent in the past 20 years and that loss is linked to the loss in habitat," said Christine Kane, CEO of Audubon International. "The reasons range from housing and commercial development to changes in agriculture production. Where land couldn't be plowed earlier, it can be plowed now.

"Milkweed was also viewed as a weed, but now we understand the important role it plays for the monarch," Kane said.

The Environmental Defense Fund and Audubon International were both trying to find ways to improve the monarch's situation and give the well-known black-and-orange butterflies a future.

"We created the program together," Kane said. We realized that golf is an industry that requires lots of land, and because only about 30 percent of the land is used for playing golf, the rest of the acreage that is 'out-of-play' could support habitat for butterflies."

The program was initially funded by a combined grant for $150,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation with matching funds from the U.S. Golf Association and Audubon International.

A pilot program began in California in 2017. Free milkweed seed was distributed nationwide in 2018, and the program took off in August of 2018 when the grant was received.

Audubon International began recruiting golf courses, asking those courses located in the monarch's fly-way from Canada to Mexico, to participate.

"It comes with a pollinator mix of seeds to help support the plot and help other types of butterflies," Kane said.