Landowner cut down trees near Pismo Beach butterfly grove. Here’s why experts are worried
Thousands of monarch butterflies make their way to the Pismo Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove every year to winter in the towering eucalyptus trees.
It’s a tourist-friendly spectacle that features increasingly fewer butterflies as monarch butterfly populations have decreased across North America.
Now, conservationists and the California Coastal Commission worry that the monarch butterflies are now at greater risk for decline after several large eucalyptus trees were cleared from a nearby area by a private property owner.
The city of Grover Beach plans to top more than a dozen trees in the same area. “Topping” a tree typically means removing all but the largest tree branches to leave stubs that can later sprout new growth, according to American Arborists.
Matthew Bronson, Grover Beach’s city manager, said this work is needed for regular maintenance of the eucalyptus trees, and is similar to other work the city has done in the past in another part of the city.
“We know that these are really important trees for the monarchs,” said Emma Pelton, an endangered species conservation biologist at the Xerces Society.
The trees provide “absolutely essential wind shelter” for the Pismo Beach monarch grove from winds that blow in during the winter months while the orange-and-black butterflies are in the grove, Pelton said.
Monarch butterfly population down, federal protection proposed
A vital pollinator, the monarch butterfly is designated as imperiled and vulnerable by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The species’ western population is just 1% of where it was four decades ago, according to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.
About 29,400 monarchs spent their winter in California in 2019 — 6,735 in the Pismo Beach grove — while an estimated 4.5 million were reported in the 1908s, according to the Xerces Society.
The U.S. Department Fish and Wildlife is set to decide whether the species needs Endangered Species Act protection in December.
In 2019, 23% of the western monarch population resided in the Pismo Beach grove during the annual Thanksgiving monarch population count organized by the Xerces Society.
Trees cut across Highway 1 from Pismo Beach grove
The Pismo Beach butterfly grove, which is owned and managed by California State Parks, is located on the west of Highway 1, south of the Pismo Dunes Resort. The trees targeted for trimming and removal are on the opposite side of the highway along Front Street in Grover Beach.
All of those trees are in an environmentally sensitive habitat area (ESHA) designated by the Coastal Commission due to its proximity to the monarch butterfly grove. Therefore, any work done on the trees would require a Coastal Development Permit administered by the city.
An ESHA is “any area in which plant or animal life or their habitats are either rare or especially valuable because of their special nature or role in an ecosystem and which could easily be disturbed or degraded by human activities,” according to the Coastal Commission.
However, Grover Beach did not know until after the trees were cut down that they were in an ESHA, so no permit was issued, Bronson wrote The Tribune in an email.
“In my opinion, this is a serious violation of the Coastal Act,” said Pat Veesart, a northern California enforcement supervisor for the Coastal Commission who is investigating the issue. “Monarchs need to have overwintering sites and a lot of the trees they used to go to along the coast have been removed, so this was one of those few big remaining spots for the butterflies.”
Bunyon Bros. Tree Service, the San Luis Obispo company contracted by the private property owner to cut down the eucalyptus trees, received the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s approval to do the tree work so long as it was done after bird nesting season ended in September, said company owner Ron Rinell.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said, however, that they did not grant permission or issue a permit for the tree work.
Since the California Department of Fish and Wildlife did not have any legal mechanism to stop the work from being done, it gave its “best suggestion, which was to not cut the trees down all at once and/or replace them with native species,” and “acknowledged that eucalyptus trees are important to monarch butterfly populations,” wrote department spokesperson Ken Paglia in an email to The Tribune.
The trees were cut down because of the massive amounts of fecal matter from cormorants, black-crowned night herons and turkey vultures that accumulated on the apartments surrounded by the trees, Rinell said Thursday.
“We care for the monarchs and their habitat, because we care about the environment more than anyone,” Rinell said. “We were just trimming the trees in the interest of public safety, that’s our utmost concern.”
McNamara Realty, a property management companty in San Luis Obispo, manages the property and adjacent apartments where the trees were cut down. The company declined to comment for this article.
If the Coastal Commission finds that the private property owner or the city of Grover Beach violated the California Coastal Act, which says that ESHAs must be “protected against any significant disruption of habitat values,” it may issue them penalty fines.
Why are eucalyptus trees important to monarch butterflies?
During the winter months, the Santa Lucia winds in San Luis Obispo County blow from the east to the west — but the Pismo Beach monarch grove has been largely protected from those winds because of nearby trees on city and private property, Pelton said.
Monarchs are sensitive insects, and inadequate wind protection in their winter habitats may cause them to have higher mortality rates, according a report by the Xerces Society sent to the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife in June 2016.
“Damaging trees that we think are important to provide the right microclimate for the monarch grove is really, really disturbing,” Pelton said.
“Cutting trees because it’s a nuisance is, to me, not justifiable,” Pelton added. “You might be damaging the ability to host 23% of an entire species in California that’s about to be decided on if it deserves federal (Endangered Species Act) protection.”
What will happen to the monarch population in the Pismo Beach grove after the trees’ removal? It’s hard to tell at this time, Pelton said.
Monarchs have just begun flying to the grove, she said, and the population is not expected to hit its peak until late November through January.
What’s next for city of Grover Beach?
The city of Grover Beach has suspended the tree work on its property near the Pismo Beach butterfly grove while it conducts an environmental impact review of trimming and topping those trees, Bronson wrote in an email.
The city is also working with State Parks and the Coastal Commission on this matter, he added.
“We recognize the environmental sensitivity of this work and seek to balance this with the maintenance needs with these trees in the city right of way,” Bronson wrote.
Veesart, the Coastal Commission enforcement supervisor, said he is in talks with the city to figure out how “this slipped through the cracks.”
Veesart said that the Coastal Commission may work with the private property owner on restoration efforts such as planting trees.
According to Pelton, the trees’ removal was the result of a failure of proper communication and knowing where ESHAs are located.
“We don’t need to point fingers and say ‘It’s this person’s fault,’ but we need to understand what fell apart,” Pelton said. “Why did this happen? How do we make sure it doesn’t happen again?”
This story was originally published October 14, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
