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Letter: Monarch butterflies need protection

Joan Troth
Glenwood Springs

In 20 years, the population of monarch butterflies has decreased by 90 percent. Herbicides like Monsanto’s Roundup are destroying their breeding habitat, the milkweed plants of the Midwestern cornfields.

Roundup contains glyphosate, a powerful herbicide that kills everything but the genetically modified Roundup-ready crops. Since 1999 with increasing use of Roundup, the fields in the corn belt have lost 99 percent of the milkweed that monarchs need for survival.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service needs to grant these butterflies protection under the Endangered Species Act.


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