Arizona Tag Recoveries

[Paul Cherubini]

The Southwest Monarch Study has a new website showing how tagged fall migrant monarchs travel to BOTH California and Mexico for the winter. Also shows some Arizona fall migrants travel NORTHWEST in the autumn: http://www.swmonarchs.org/az-recoveries.php

[Mona Miller]

http://www.monarchwatch.org/tagmig/urq1.htm
Just have to look at the Urquhart data to see that some of the CA Monarchs head farther south, too.

[Paul Cherubini]

Urquhart has no data showing "CA Monarchs head farther south, too" [in the autumn]. He did have one California to Arizona southeasterly recovery: http://www.monarchwatch.org/grafx/tagmig/u81map.gif but that was a Spring migration recovery.

So the whole notion that monarchs always "fly south in the autumn" and "north in the Spring" is not entirely true as tagging data shows some Arizona monarchs fly Northwest in the autumn and some overwintered California coast monarchs fly southeast in the Spring.

[Mona Miller]

What are they flying to? Does weather have anything to do with where they fly? Do hosts and nectar sources have anything to do with where they fly? Do people have anything to do with where they go (I hear about all kinds of people taking their butterflies on vacation with them)? I've even heard of people on the east coast sending Monarchs to California. Many, many people don't know that it is against the law.

Speaking of weather:
A naturalist friend had Monarchs that she tagging on the east coast that were blown all the way to the coast of England during a tropical storm. The person who found them in England 5 days later contacted her through the information on the tags.

Aren't there violent storms during spring and fall migrations along the west coast of California and Mexico?

[Paul Cherubini]

Some Arizona monarchs fly NORTHWEST in the Autumn EVERY year. So the Southwest Monarch Study will end up documenting these northwesterly flights are not caused by wind as the winds are variable from year to year. Likewise in the Spring, tagging at the California overwintering sites has shown some overwintered monarchs fly SOUTHEAST in the Spring EVERY year despite the variable winds.

I'm wondering how many years will pass before the professional Monarch Scientific Community will be willing to change their migration maps to show fall migrant monarchs in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming are known to fly to BOTH the Pacific coast and central Mexico for the winter? Why are they so reluctant to change their maps?

[Mona Miller]

Those maps contain areas where the majority flies. They don't do separate states or countries. They don't do directions for each state or country. These are flight paths taken by most butterflies. For example, most of the butterflies on the east coast go to Mexico and most of the butterflies on the West Coast go to California.

[Paul Cherubini]

45 years of tagging data tells us the flight paths of fall migrant monarchs in the western USA span a wide range of directions, that the butterflies cross high mountain ranges and extremely arid, treeless deserts and end up at the overwintering sites in both California and Mexico:
http://www.swmonarchs.org/az-recoveries.php
http://www.monarchwatch.org/grafx/tagmig/u94map.gif
http://www.monarchwatch.org/grafx/tagmig/u81map.gif
http://www.monarchwatch.org/grafx/tagmig/u71map.gif
www.swallowtailfarms.com/pages/educatio ... s_mms.html

So in order for the public and media to ever become widely informed of these facts, the Scientists MUST start drawing maps with arrows going in a wide range of directions like this:
http://www.swmonarchs.org/az-recoveries.php