Environmental Group sues US EPA over demise of Monarch Butterfly

An environmental group on Friday sued the US government, blaming the regulators of discounting herbicide that has resulted in the decline of monarch butterfly population.

Following the complaint, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has filed suit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in US District Court in New York.

The suit has stated that the agency didn't pay any attention to the warnings about the dangers of glyphosate to monarchs. Glyphosate is a key ingredient of a commonly used herbicide and is generally used in the Monsanto Co's Roundup and other herbicides.

The lawsuit has stated that Federal law wants EPA to make sure that the pesticides it approves will not cause any 'unreasonable adverse effects on the environment, including wildlife'.

The suit has claimed that the agency has never taken into consideration the impact of glyphosate's on monarchs.

It has been mentioned that the NRDC and other environmental organizations have many a times asked the EPA to evaluate what they say is a large body of scientific evidence which demonstrates that glyphosate has devastating effects on the monarchs. But, the EPA never took any action in this regard.

In a statement, EPA has responded that it has taken several steps for the protection of butterflies but the science on the issue "is still evolving." They added that there are various factors that affect monarchs like loss of habitat, weather and pesticides.

The orange-and-black spotted monarchs are well known for migrating thousands of miles (km) over many generations from Mexico, across the United States to Canada, and then back again.

According to the Center for Biological Diversity, in the recent years, the number of these monarchs has seen a drastic decline.

The lawsuit has stated that the application of glyphosate to the farm fields is the major cause of the monarch demise and the resulting destruction of the milkweed habitat on which the migrating monarchs rely.