Monarch Conundrum: Crossing the Great Divide

[Mona Miller]

Can anyone tell me why there are no Eastern Monarch Watch tags showing up in the Western States? Monarch Watch has tag recovery data from 1992-2010 posted to their website:
http://www.monarchwatch.org/tagmig/recoveries.htm
They distribute tags to states east of the Rocky Mountains, including Colorado. With thousands of Monarchs being tagged in eastern states, why aren't more showing up in the West?

[Paul Cherubini]

Because there hasn’t been much tagging in the western Great Plains adjacent to the Rocky Mountains (mere low 100’s have been tagged over the years from what I can surmise from corresponding with taggers in that area).

But when commercial butterfly farmer Jacob Groth shipped 1,200 fall migrants to Albuquerque, NM in late Sept/early Oct. 1999, two were recaptured in California, one dead near the Ellwood Main overwintering site just west of Santa Barbara and the other alive in a cluster at the Taylor Ranch overwintering site in Ventura. Albuquerque is 75 miles east of the southernmost Rocky Mountains and Continental Divide.

It’s all explained here http://swallowtailfarms.com/pages/educa ... s_mms.html in greater detail than any other tagging study in history.

[Mona Miller]

I didn't asked about Western Monarchs going East. I asked about Eastern Monarchs going West.

[Paul Cherubini]

Some Eastern Monarchs will fly southwest regardless if they are released in the east or the west. Look up the tag recapture records in the Urquhart's "International Traveler" book about the eastern monarchs that were shipped to the west and recovered on the California coast.

Also, millions of eastern monarchs fly southwest across the Continental Divide in Mexico in November each year to the Cerro San Andres and Mil Cumbres overwintering sites.

[Paul Cherubini]

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/ ... ticle/544/
"as a former kid collector who’d haunted the Colorado high country whenever possible, I had seen monarchs crossing the Rockies crest in both directions, and doubted its effectiveness as an ultimate barrier."

[Mona Miller]

Again, the question is why there are no eastern tags showing up in the West?

[Paul Cherubini]

If 1000's of eastern monarchs were transfered to areas adjacent to the Rocky Mountains in the late summer (areas like Albuquerque, Denver, Cheyenne, Great Falls), some would end up in California just like what happened with the 1,200 California monarchs Jacob Groth shipped to Albuquerque.

[Mona Miller]

You are still not answering the question. I'm asking about Eastern tagged Monarchs crossing the divide.

[Paul Cherubini]

Prior to 1999 people were also asking the same question in reverse: How come no western monarchs have been found in Mexico despite decades of tagging western monarchs? I told them: No one has tagged 1000's in the West adjacent to the Rocky Mountains. My response didn't phase them...they still insisted that the lack of recaptures in Mexico represented good evidence that western monarchs weren't flying southeast, over the Rocky Mountains to the overwintering sites in Mexico. Indeed they thought it was crazy to suggest fall migrants would fly "the wrong way" or "fly the hard and dangerous route" over
the Rocky Mountains. They thought western monarchs would "follow rivers" to the California coast instead of over high mountain ranges and arid deserts.

Then Jacob Groth and I changed all that in 1999 with our transfers of 1000's to western Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. We got recaptures in Mexico.

Then in the 2000's the Southwest Monarch Study also got recaptures in Mexico of untransfered wild caught Arizona monarchs.

[Mona Miller]

You are still not answering the original question. Why aren't Eastern tagged Monarchs showing up in the West? I'm not concerned with all that other information. I know all about that. What I don't know about is why again, I say why eastern tagged monarchs are not showing up in the west?

[Paul Cherubini]

Over the years, 1,000,000+ monarchs have been tagged in the midwestern and eastern States, but no recoveries have been made in California so basically none of those monarchs are going to the western States in the fall (but some likely do in the Spring via flying northwest from Mexico).

Only low 100's of eastern monarchs have been tagged in the western Great Plains adjacent to the Rocky Mountains and that is not a high enough to generate recoveries in the West
But if 1000's of eastern monarchs were tagged in the western Great Plains adjacent to the Rocky Mountains, then there would likely be recoveries in California.

[Mona Miller]

I looked through Dr. Urquhart's 1960, "Monarch Butterfly" book last night. Absolutely, no tagged Monarchs going from East to West.

Dr. Urquhart tagged thousands of Monarchs in Mexico. In Dr. James Scotts', "A Natural History of Butterflies of North American...", one of Dr. Urquhart's Mexican tagged Monarchs was picked up in New York. But, no records of Mexican Monarchs going to the West.

Yes there is a small exchange. Here and there and everywhere. The Monarch in the past have traveled to the coast of England in the fall, to Cuba, to the Caribbean... Monarchs are known as the wonder. They are residents of Peru, New Zealand, and Australia, etc. But, no place has as many as the Eastern part of the US and Canada, and Mexico.

So why does it matter that huge number go from the East to West?

[Paul Cherubini]

Like the Monarch Watch, Dr. Urquhart's volunteers tagged almost exclusively in the Midwestern and Eastern States, so that's why there were no recaptures in the West

For many years, there have been postings on Journey North of Mexican monarchs moving northwest in the spring into New Mexico: http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78 ... 2010jn.jpg
http://i959.photobucket.com/albums/ae78/18R-C/2011.jpg

And a wild monarch tagged in California in the winter was recaptured east of the Rocky Mountains in Pueblo, Colorado on April 28, 2003: http://www.monarchwatch.org/update/2004/frey.pdf

Nathan Miller's isotope research has taught us monarchs can move several hundred monarchs in the early summer. So eastern monarchs could be moving into the West during the summer as well as in the Spring. And, of course, tagging in the West has already shown some western monarchs routinely fly to the Mexican overwintering sites in the fall.

Bottom line is there is mixing for 6 months of the year along a 2,000+ mile stretch of North America running from Montana to central Mexico.

[Mona Miller]

But, the exchange is not enough to allow the USDA/APHIS to unregulate Monarchs.

Monarchs traveling from the East to the West or from Mexico to the West is not a Monarch freeway, it is at best a small rural back road.

If it were a freeway, then large numbers of Monarchs would be seen traveling from the East to the West, just like they go through Texas and along the East Coast. Also, large numbers would be seen in the Spring showing up in those Western States. None of those Western States get large numbers of remigrants from Mexico.

Those large numbers of Monarchs traveling to Mexico from the East and mid-West during fall migration is why Dr. Urquhart knew that they couldn't all go to winter over in California. The numbers in California and along the Coast is why he continued searching for the colonies that were eventually found in Mexico. And, also having tags picked up in Mexico:

On page 295, of "Monarch Butterfly", Dr. Urquhart notes a butterfly tagged on 9/18/57 in Highpoint Creek, Ontario was later located by the tag number on 1/25/58 in Estacion Catorce, San Luis Potosi, Mexico (travel 1,870 miles, direction SW).

[Mona Miller]

For your reference, this is a map of the continental divide:
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/contdiv.htm

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/places/states/index.htm
The states to the far right are considered mid-western.

http://shop.monarchwatch.org/product.as ... _kits(base)&p=121239(base)
"Monarch Tags are only shipped to areas east of the Rocky Mountains"

[Paul Cherubini]

[Mona Miller]

You've got your lines drawn in the wrong places. That includes part of the mid-west.

For your reference, this is a map of the continental divide:
http://www.worldatlas.com/aatlas/infopage/contdiv.htm

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/places/states/index.htm
The states to the far right are considered mid-western.

The shoe hill under New Mexico is part of Texas.

I think you are wrong. Wrong about Monarch Watch tagging and wrong about Dr. Urquhart tagging.

You want to be right because you are trying to prove this huge exchange and it is everyone else's fault that it can't be proven. It must be some kind of conspiracy. But, it isn't.

The problem is the flyways. Monarchs use the same flyways that birds use:
http://www.birdnature.com/allflyways.html
Look at the Central and Pacific Flyways.

[Paul Cherubini]

[Paul Cherubini]

The problem is the flyways. Monarchs use the same flyways that birds use:
http://www.birdnature.com/allflyways.html Look at the Central and Pacific Flyways.

Several people who have studied monarch migration are also bird migration experts; e.g. Klaus Schmidt-Koenig and Elizabeth Howard who runs Journey North and Dick Walton who runs the Cape May Monarch Monitoring Project. None of those "dual experts" has suggested "Monarchs use the same flyways that birds use" to my knowledge.

[Mona Miller]

Who picked up these tags in Mexico?

[Mona Miller]

The problem is the flyways. Monarchs use the same flyways that birds use:
http://www.birdnature.com/allflyways.html Look at the Central and Pacific Flyways.

Several people who have studied monarch migration are also bird migration experts; e.g. Klaus Schmidt-Koenig and Elizabeth Howard who runs Journey North and Dick Walton who runs the Cape May Monarch Monitoring Project. None of those "dual experts" has suggested "Monarchs use the same flyways that birds use" to my knowledge.

People at hawk watching stations see Monarchs all the time. They are seen in Michigan, PA, Texas, East Coast...

[Paul Cherubini]

Who picked up these tags in Mexico?

Same people who have picked up 1000's of other tags in Mexico: the indigenous people who live in the immediate vicinity of the El Rosario and Cerro Pelon Sanctuaries and sometimes the Sanctuary tourist guides. Not too many people live close to the cluster areas of the other Sanctuaries so far few tags are found by the local people at the other sites.