NEW YORK (AP) — The Waffle House restaurant chain is putting a 50 cent per egg surcharge in place because of the biggest bird flu outbreak in a decade.

The 24-7 restaurant said that the resulting egg shortage has led to a dramatic increase in its costs.

Bird flu is forcing farmers to slaughter millions of chickens a month, pushing U.S. egg prices to more than double their cost in the summer of 2023. And it appears there may be no relief in sight with Easter approaching.

The average price per dozen eggs nationwide hit $4.15 in December. That is not quite as high as the $4.82 record set two years ago, but the Agriculture Department predicts egg prices are going to soar another 20% this year.

The Waffle House, a reliable source of a cheap breakfast, said that its egg surcharge became effective this week and that it applies to all of its menus. The restaurant’s two-egg breakfast, which comes with toast and a side, was listed at $7.75 on Tuesday.

“While we hope these price fluctuations will be short-lived we cannot predict how long this shortage will last,” the company said.

The company continues to monitor egg prices and said that it will adjust or remove the surcharge as market conditions allow.

Last month, the first U.S. human fatality linked bird flu was reported in Louisiana. There have been 67 confirmed bird flu infections of humans in the U.S. since 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The H5N1 bird flu has been spreading widely among wild birds, poultry, cows and other animals. Its growing presence in the environment increases the chances that people will be exposed, and potentially catch it, officials have said, though it remains rare.

Health officials urge anyone who has contact with sick or dead birds to take precautions, including respiratory and eye protection and gloves when handling poultry.

Waffle House, based in Georgia, has more than 1,900 locations in 25 states.

Pete & Gerry’s Organics also faced a difficult situation with its eggs in Antrim Township, Pennsylvania, when 100,000 of them were stolen from the back of its distribution trailer Saturday night, according to Pennsylvania State Police. Law enforcement are investigating the theft of roughly $40,000 worth of eggs.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The number of monarch butterflies spending the winter in the western United States has dropped to its second-lowest mark in nearly three decades as pesticides, diminishing habitat and climate change take their toll on the beloved pollinator.

Here’s what to know:

The survey began in 1997

Monarch butterflies, known for their distinctive orange-and-black wings, are found across North America. Monarchs in the eastern United States spend their winters in Mexico and are counted by the World Wildlife Fund, which has yet to release data for this year. Monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains typically overwinter along the California coast.

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has been counting western overwinter populations along the California coast, northern Baja California and inland sites in California and Arizona for the last 28 years. The highest number recorded was 1.2 million in 1997. The organization announced Friday that it counted just 9,119 monarchs in 2024, a decrease of 96% from 233,394 in 2023. The total was the second-lowest since the survey began in 1997. The record-low was 1,901 monarchs in 2020.

The survey noted that a site owned by The Nature Conservancy in Santa Barbara that saw 33,200 monarchs last winter hosted only 198 butterflies this year.

Heat may have doomed western monarchs

Monarchs across the continent face mounting threats, chief among them vanishing milkweed, the host plant for the insect’s caterpillars. The plant has been disappearing before a combination of drought, wildfires, agriculture and urban development, according to Monarch Joint Venture, a group that works to protect monarchs. Pesticides have contaminated much of the remaining plants, according to the Xerces Society.

It’s unclear what caused such a sharp drop-off in the western population in just one year, said Emma Pelton, an endangered species biologist with the Xerces Society. The monarch population is already small, she said, and triple-digit heat in the western states last year may have slowed breeding.

Monarchs suffer when the mercury gets up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37.7 Celsius) and any temperatures above 108 degrees Fahrenheit (42.2 degrees Celsius) are lethal to the insects, Pelton said. The western states saw a heat wave in July that drove temperatures in some areas well past 100 degrees. Palm Springs, for example, hit a record 124 degrees Fahrenheit (51.1 degrees Celsius) on July 5. Another heat wave cooked northern California in early October, with multiple cities breaking heat records.

Western monarchs’ future looks murky

Pelton said that it’s too early to tell what long-term impact the dramatic losses might have on the overall western monarch population. Insects do have the potential for exponential growth, Pelton said. After bottoming out at 1,901 butterflies in 2020, the population rebounded to 247,246 insects the following year, an increase of nearly 13,000%. The year after that the survey recorded 335,479 monarchs.

“This is bad news,” Pelton said of the 2024 population drop. “But we have seen incredible recovery. this doesn’t mean we’re not going to have western monarchs. It’s hopefully a wake-up call that a bad year can set them back pretty significantly.”

Federal officials working on protections

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced in December 2024 that it was working to list monarchs as threatened, a move that would prohibit anyone from killing, transporting them or making changes that would render their property permanently unusable for the species, such as eradicating all milkweed from the land. The listing also would protect 4,395 acres (1,779 hectares) in seven coastal California counties that serve as overwinter sites for western monarchs.

A public comment period on the proposal is set to end in March. The agency has until December to officially list the monarch as threatened if officials decide to move forward.

Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency in December 2024 to mandate testing pesticide effects on insects such as bees, moths and butterflies.