The Monarch Butterfly is a pollinator Herald

Most people know that Bees are our primary pollinators.

Some people understand that Bee keeping is expensive. Farmer that use Bees to pollinate their crops see Bee colony rental costs skyrocketing.

Few people understand the ecology of pollination and pollinators. These few probably understand that the Monarch Butterfly is one of the only pollinators that migrate. This means that the Monarch Butterfly touches a lot more diverse pollen sources than Bees and other pollinators.

Fewer still, are the people that know that the Monarch Butterfly is the herald for other pollinators.

The Monarch Butterfly acts as a herald in that it finds pollen rich areas and this informs the other pollinators, like Bees, where to go.

In short, this means that other pollinators will be less predictable and more inefficient without the Monarch Butterfly.

In other words, the loss of the Monarch Butterfly makes our food more expensive.

The ecology of it is a house of cards that we end up paying for at the dinner table.

Presently, for Almonds alone, Bee pollination in California costs around $420,000,000 per year. This cost is past on to us in our food costs.

When the Monarch Butterfly is present and informing the Bees of pollen rich locations, the Bees become more efficient, productive, and predictable. This can reduce the cost by 25% or $105,000,000 per year.

This means your grocery bill will decline.

We think this is worth the investment in our habitats and California Milkweed Highway. Simple match says that we can build 4 sites for the cost reduction resulting from one year of better pollinator efficiency.

Investing now means your grocery bill will decline as the Monarch Butterfly repopulates.