This week, we have a guest post from Emily Erickson, a graduate student in entomology (bugs!) at Tufts University in Boston. She is collaborating with Washington State University to get the word out about the Western Monarch Mystery Challenge, an initiative with the goal of monitoring monarch butterfly populations during the spring months following their overwintering period. Read on to find out how you can help!
It has been an exciting year for monarch butterflies in the west! At Thanksgiving 2020, the Xerxes Society for Invertebrate Conservation reported that there were fewer than 2000 adults counted at the overwintering sites on the coast. In the most recent count in 2021, however, almost 1/4 million monarchs were recorded by community scientists at overwintering sites!
Western monarchs migrate annually from the coast of California to the Rocky Mountains. Early spring is a critical time of year for these monarchs, as it is when their population size is likely the lowest and the surviving adults are quite old (between 6-9 months) and thus can have quite a bit of wing damage. Despite the importance of protecting monarchs during this time of year, researchers know relatively little about where they are during the spring months.
The Western Monarch Mystery Challenge, led by researchers at Washington State University, aims to bridge this knowledge gap using community-science to collect valuable data on monarch distribution throughout the west between Valentine’s Day (2/14) and Earth Day (4/22). Participation in this project is simple – all you have to do to get involved is to photograph any monarchs that you see (they can be blurry!) and send those pictures to monarchmystery@wsu.edu along with the date and location of the observation. You can upload these images directly to iNaturalist or the Western Monarch Milkweed Mapper. We select a weekly prize winner each week from the entries, a $50 gift card from REI! You can also follow us on Twitter (@wmonarchmystery), Facebook (@MonarchMystery) and Instagram (@westernmonarchmystery) to stay updated on the project. With the promising number of adults counted at overwintering sites this year, we are hoping for a great season of monarch sightings! We hope you participate in our project!
Bees N Blooms is growing lots of organic milkweed plants this year, getting them ready for our spring plant sales in April and May, so be sure to stop by to get Monarch food for your gardens! We’ll have plants available on Easter weekend (April 16-17), Farm Trails weekend (April 30-May 1), and Mothers Day weekend (May 7-8).
What a lovely project! I absolutely love butterflies and always make a garden for them and our Bees… We appreciate all God’s Creatures that are so often ignored… I will be photographing as always and hope to be able to contribute to the project!!
Thanks Rosanna! I think they will be out early this year, with all this warm weather!
Susan, thank you for being such an incredible resource for information about the flora and fauna in our county. I hope your roadside store will also be open during the times of your upcominplant sales. I’ve bought many a gifts there. In the meantime, we’ll keep our eyes and cameras peeled for monarch butterflies and keep you posted. Again, thank you for all you do…for creating a beautiful lavender labyrinth and garden of other earthy delights on your property and sharing your knowledge of science with all of us. You were meant to be a conduit of teaching about science.
Thank you Cyndi for your kind words. If we can’t exactly change the world, perhaps we can change a small piece of it.