Every year, monarch butterflies fly from Canada and the U.S. to Mexico. This migration, or seasonal movement, is thousands of miles long! Unfortunately, these impressive insects are under threat. In July 2022, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) officially classified the North American monarch butterfly as an endangered species.
The insect’s numbers have been dropping for decades. “The main reasons for monarch declines are habitat loss and climate change,” says Karen Oberhauser, a conservation biologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She hopes that the IUCN’s new classification will bring attention to the monarch’s situation. She also hopes it will encourage people to help protect the species from becoming extinct.