06/10/2026
The way we protect monarch butterflies is by restoring their wild habitat, avoiding insecticides, and planting native.
When humans try to further interfere with nature by captive rearing monarchs or keeping caterpillars away from predators, it does more harm than good to the overall population.
Itâs easy to think, âWell, monarch populations are decreasing, so the answer must be to make sure as many survive as possible!â
This seems logical, and it mostly comes from a place of compassion, but itâs not the reality.
From a recently updated article by The Xerces Society (a global leader in invertebrate conservation):
âRaising monarchs in captivity is a good tool for education and research â but not conservationâŠ.
Monarchs evolved to have very high rates of predation and parasitism, so stepping in in the hope that a higher proportion of eggs make it to adulthood is not necessarily the best thing for the population as a wholeâŠ.
A study of recoveries of tagged monarchs suggested that captive-bred monarchs have lower migration success compared to wild monarchs (Morris et al. 2015). This research suggests that captive-bred monarchs are less able to survive â and thus donât help the population as much as wild monarchs. There is broad agreement among the monarch scientific community that captive breeding and mass releases can introduce unnecessary risks to wild monarch populations.â
A big reason that butterfly/moth conservation is so important is that caterpillars are at the foundation of the food web. Theyâre SUPPOSED to get eaten by predators. It takes over 6000 caterpillars to feed one single brood of chickadees. Nature can be brutal, but itâs not our job to interfere with the circle of life.
âThis can be a little counter-intuitive, but itâs really about valuing the entire population of wild, beautiful monarchs instead of focusing on individual butterflies. For example, hypothetically, letâs say you wild-collect 100 eggs and 90 of them make it to adulthood instead of the 10 that would have survived on their own in the wild. Maybe some of those 90 eggs wouldnât have survived on their own because theyâre not as âfitâ (in the biological sense) and now their less-fit genes are out there in a population thatâs already in trouble.â - The Xerces Society, 2025
When humans arbitrarily choose which caterpillars survive to adulthood, it hinders natural selection and weakens the gene pool, which will ultimately reduce the overall population.
In nature, caterpillars with weaker genes get eaten, parasitized, or succumb to pathogens. Ones with stronger genes are more resistant to disease, better at hiding, healthier overall, and more likely to survive into adulthood and reproduce.
The ones who reproduce pass on their genes to the next generation, so itâs important that the genes passed on are ones that help the species population thrive.
Captive rearing monarchs in large numbers creates even more problems, such as increased pathogens like Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (also known as âOEâ) due to too many caterpillars sharing a small space, and not having sufficient numbers of milkweed plants to support so many hungry caterpillars all at once.
âAnother way of looking at it is resource limitation: Letâs say you release those 90 butterflies (instead of the 10 which would have survived). Is there enough milkweed for 90 butterfliesâ eggs and caterpillars to eat? Or did you just unwittingly create a situation where there will be too many caterpillars with too little food? If so, the boost in numbers possible through rearing doesnât carry over to the next generation, and could be problematic due to competition for limited resources between the resulting caterpillars.
Unfortunately, this apparently is a common phenomenonâespecially in urban areas. We repeatedly hear from people that monarchs have defoliated their milkweed and thereâs nothing left for them to eat. Again, when looking at the scale of the whole population, this could pose a problem.â - The Xerces Society, 2025
So what do we do to protect the beautiful and declining monarch butterflies?
We need to protect their habitat. They rely on the native plant species that they co-evolved with, and on having the right plants in the right places. Make sure whichever milkweed species youâre planting is native to your area.
And they need safe plants that havenât been treated with pesticides that kill them. Avoid insecticides, even if theyâre labeled as âorganicâ or ânaturalâ.
If youâd like to help more caterpillars survive, itâs also important to note that they have higher survival rates on milkweed thatâs hosting a diversity of other insects and bugs!
So let those aphids be (they will not kill a healthy plant!), and share your milkweed with the other insects that co-evolved to eat it. When predators come looking for a meal, having more to choose from means theyâre less likely to eat every monarch caterpillar.
How to Help Save Monarchs
DO:
Plant milkweed native to your region
Plant nectar plants native to your region
Encourage biodiversity in your yard
Spread awareness
Remove invasive plants
Share your milkweed with other insects
DONâT:
Use insecticides
Captive rear caterpillars
Protect caterpillars from predators
Kill other bugs on milkweed plants
Plant invasive species
Plant milkweed that isnât native to your region
*Quotations cited are from the article âKeep Monarchs Wild: Why Captive Rearing Isnât the Way to Help Monarchsâ written by Emma Pelton and published by The Xerces Society.
*Graphic is original copyrighted work by Native Yardening, LLC
