The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is pushing for monarch butterflies to gain a federally protected status that would move them to the endangered species list. 

For local advocates, that change is a longtime coming as they work to help conserve the beloved species.

Population assessments show monarch populations have declined by 59% from 2023 to 2024. The unique pollinators are an important part of the ecosystem, but also have deep cultural connections.

“They are an insect pollinator. Most people think about pollination in conjunction with honeybees and bumblebees because they are so very important to our food crops, however, butterflies can be very important for our wildflower populations,” said André Copeland, manager of interpretive programs at Brookfield Zoo Chicago.

The zoo collaborates with the Illinois Monarch Project to help increase the insect’s population through educational services, conservation efforts and meeting statewide goals to plant native milkweed for the butterflies to eat and lay eggs on.

“When you take a look worldwide, butterflies have a significance in many cultures,” said Copeland. “They’re related to our dreams; going from one realm to another; sometimes they can be signals from our loved ones that are in the hereafter that have come back to give us certain messages.”

Monarchs have a special significance in Illinois dating back to 1975 when a group of school children in Decatur successfully lobbied to have the monarch butterfly considered the state insect. By 2017, milkweed became the official state wildflower of Illinois.

Each fall, monarch butterflies migrate from the northern border of Canada all the way down to Mexico, and then move back north to states in the eastern corridor, like Illinois, in the spring and summer.

Pilsen resident Claudia Galeno-Sanchez of Mujeres Por Espacios Verdes has dedicated her time and home to the preservation of these pollinators. She says that as a young girl in Mexico, she’d wait for the first sign of monarchs and know summer finally arrived. Today, she’s noticed a major decrease in the amount that flock through her hometown in Mexico and her Chicago sanctuary.

She works to educate her Southwest Side community and two children, Leocito, 7, and Claudita, 10, on how they can best support their winged friends.

“It’s so sad for me to think that one day I won’t be with [my kids], but while I’m alive I want to keep planting as many trees, as many plants as I can because I told them that I’m going to come back as a butterfly,” said Galeno-Sanchez. “I told them that I will be back and I will be with them forever.”

For her, the butterflies are a symbol of liberation.

“The butterflies can pass the border anytime they need to because they need to migrate south and then north. They don’t require a passport, they don’t require papers to cross borders. It’s something that makes me feel so painful because humans are not free to do that,” said Galeno-Sanchez. “We don’t have the wings to visit our family in Mexico.”

Just a few blocks from Galeno-Sanchez’s home-turned-butterfly sanctuary is Orozco Community Academy, where the young students are also working hard to bring more green spaces to Pilsen. 

Galeno-Sanchez influenced the school to make a small garden where the kids can learn about agriculture and the importance of native plants.

“It’s wonderful to instill the love of nature into children,” said Lisa Drucker, a special education teacher at Orozco Community School who leads the school’s gardening efforts.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is accepting public comments on its proposal to list monarch butterflies as an endangered species now through March 12.

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