California's monarch butterflies are disappearing but you could help save them.
"I's pretty terrifying what's going on," says Antonio Sanchez. He is the manager of the native plant nursery for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
He says the monarch population has been dwindling for decades but it's really sped up in the past couple of years.
"The counts are going down. In some places, there was only three butterflies this winter. In some places there was less than 2,000 when there used to be 20,000, 100,000 just a few years ago," he says.
Sanchez says pesticides, climate change and loss of habitat are to blame.
CONFERENCE INFO: https://www.samofund.org/southern-california-monarch
Monarch butterflyPhotos by Izzy Lopez @ SAMOFund
The good news is there's a lot you can do, including just planting some narrowleaf milkweed in your yard.
Why should you care?
Sanchez says there are about 99% fewer monarchs now in CA than there were in the 1980s. And, they're beautiful.
"In conservation, we talk about how koalas and pandas - they are so cute. This is basically one of the koalas and pandas of California," he says.
The Santa Monica Mountains Fund is putting on a free virtual conference this Saturday about monarchs and milkweeds.
