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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday it will spend $20 million dollars over the next five years to help boost monarch butterfly populations. 


The number of monarch butterflies has declined by about 90 percent during the last two decades. 

Early research links insecticide, monarch butterfly deaths


Director Dan Ashe told MPR News host Tom Weber that the agency will be using some of the funds to build up the butterflies' habitat in the Midwest.


"Conservation on the local scale matters, so when someone plants milkweed in their backyard, schoolyard, state park, local park, national wildlife refuge, it makes a difference," he said.

The natural: Transforming a yard from nasty to native


The monarchs are known for their long migration across North America. 


Ashe says his agency is cooperating with authorities in Canada and Mexico to ensure adequate habitat across the butterflies' long range.

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The money will be spent over the next five years and is spurred by a steady decline in the number of monarch butterflies.

Dan Ashe, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director discusses efforts to bring back the monarch butterfly and shares details on the agency's effort to prosecute the Minnesota hunter who killed Cecil the lion.

U.S. agency pledges $20 million to save monarch butterfly

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