FOG BLOG WORLD NEWS LOG: MONARCH BUTTERFLIES PUT ON THE ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST!

Endangered monarchs 'not protected in any way,' Manitoba prof says. 'If we were to lose that butterfly as part of our natural environment, we would all feel that loss'

Manitoba's monarch butterfly population is the endangered species that makes an annual migration to and from the forests in central Mexico — a species now considered closer to extinction — yet its survival is resting on a wing and a prayer.

"They're not protected in any way. That means that I or anyone else could walk out with a net and catch and kill one if we wished," said Jeffrey Marcus, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Manitoba

"It really is an iconic butterfly. It's one of the few butterfly species that essentially everyone in North America recognizes. If we were to, for whatever reason, lose that butterfly as part of our natural environment, we would all feel that loss."

The monarch butterfly was added on Thursday to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's "red list" of threatened species and categorized as endangered — two steps from extinct.

The group estimates that the population of monarchs in North America has declined between 22 per cent and 72 per cent over 10 years, depending on the measurement method.