Southward | Cloaked in the first snow of the coming winter season, a lone stalk of milkweed leans in the direction taken by tens of thousands of monarch butterflies in their annual migration to warmer regions. Monarchs cannot survive without milkweed. Adult monarchs drink the nectar of many flowers, but they pupate and feed exclusively on milkweed as caterpillars. The world population of monarchs has dropped precipitously during the past two decades, an alarming trend attributed agricultural pesticides in the midwest and deforestation of natural wintering habitat attributed to illegal logging and global warming. Total monarch hibernation area in Mexico, for example, has decreased from 34 acres to less than 1.6 acres since 1996, for example. (Herald / Bob Eddy)