Outside Podcast: A Long-Shot Bid to Save the Monarch Butterfly

Conservationists hoping to protect a threatened wild species tend to take a standard set of actions.

These can involve political campaigns, lawsuits, and media outreach. But sometimes it’s the unexpected approaches that can make the difference. Over the past several years, artist Jane Kim has been creating large-scale public murals of the monarch butterfly, an insect that’s in a state of crisis. Recent surveys indicate the that the population of the western monarch in California has plummeted to below 30,000, down from 4.5 million in the mid-1980s. Kim’s latest work is a painting in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district that wraps three sides of a 13-story building and includes a 50-foot-tall monarch. It’s suddenly one of the most dramatic features in the city’s skyline. The question now is whether this extraordinary piece of public art will spur the actions needed to save the species—or become a tribute to a once beautiful butterfly.

 

Outside’s longstanding literary storytelling tradition comes to life in audio with features that will both entertain and inform listeners. We launched in March 2016 with our first series, Science of Survival, which was developed in partnership with PRX, distributors of the idolized This American Life and The Moth Radio Hour, among others. We have since expanded our show and now offer a range of story formats, including interviews with the biggest figures in sports, adventure, and politics, as well as reports from our correspondents in the field.


Science Topics
Biology, Conservation & Sustainability, Zoology
Animals
Butterflies & Moths
Music, Art, and Language Arts Topics
Visual Art
High School
9th Grade, 10th Grade, 11th Grade, 12th Grade, Adults

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