==========================================
Contents:
==========================================
Unless otherwise noted, all content was authored by Chip Taylor, edited by Jim Lovett and Sarah Schmidt, and published by Jim Lovett.
==========================================
Although the number of monarchs overwintering in Mexico this year is higher than last year (2.19 hectares), we still don’t have a good idea of the overall size of the population. Reports from those who have visited various monarch colonies in Mexico indicate that while at least one colony is larger than normal, others are normal in size or smaller than usual. Even though the information available at this time is fragmentary, it would appear that the total population will be within the range of 5-7 hectares. If true, the size of the population will fit the predictions made in the July 2005 Update. Hopefully, we will be able to cite the official measurements generated by the efforts of Eduardo Rendon and his crew from World Wildlife Fund Mexico next month.
The winter conditions at the overwintering sites in Mexico have been normal to slightly above normal. The daytime highs through much of January have been in the low 70s rather than the more normal high 60s. The good news is that there have been no hard freezes or winter storms. Looking ahead into February the prospect for storms seems to be low - assuming the jet stream doesn’t dip well into the eastern Pacific.
Spring is coming and it won’t be but two more weeks – around Valentine’s Day - before the monarchs begin mating at the overwintering sites. How appropriate!
Are you wondering where winter went? I am. In eastern Kansas our winter ended after Christmas some 3.5 weeks after it began. The last 5 weeks have been so warm, with many days in the 50s and 60s, a full 20 degrees above normal day after day, that it seems like we are into March already. Each evening the weather reporters emphasize the uniqueness of the current weather pattern. In the winter months the jet stream sweeps down east of the Rockies well into the lower Midwest. This year the jet stream is well to the north and is moving from west to east across Canada without dipping substantially into the lower 48 – a summer pattern rather one that is typically seen in mid winter. In the upper Midwest winter sports such as ice fishing, skiing, and snowmobiling have been severely curtailed by the warm weather.
The current pattern has also limited the flow of moisture into the central portion of the continent with the result that severe drought conditions have developed in parts of Texas and Oklahoma. The drought conditions combined with high winds have resulted in numerous devastating grass fires in these states and considerable worry about the prospects for spring planting. There are hints in the long-range forecast that February will be cooler and wetter than January but it will take a considerable amount of rain to restore soil moisture in some areas.
Remember that old Johnny Carson routine when Johnny would remark about hot it was and Ed McMahon would ask “How hot was it?” Johnny would come back with a snappy, somewhat oddball, often silly, and totally unexpected answer? Gosh, I wish could remember some of those punchlines, I could use them to jazz up the rest of this text.
So, Chip, how hot was Kansas in January? It was so hot my long underwear hitchhiked to Alaska!
Ok, so I’ll never get a job writing comedy routines. But, the winters are getting warmer and the rate of change is alarming. In eastern Kansas the mean temperature for January has increased at a rate of 1.6F for each of the last three decades. That’s a substantial change for such a short period. Such changes if they continue are certain to have a significant impact on the fauna and flora.
Comprehensive weather records are available online for the United States from 1895 to the present at:
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/cag3.html
The records can be examined for the nation, by regions, by states and by certain cities. The records for the winter (December - February) for the entire United States show that 6 of the 8 warmest winters in the last 110 years have occurred since 1991. Further, it becomes apparent that if the current weather pattern continues through at least half of February, the winter of 2005-2006 will be the warmest winter of this entire period.
The mean temperatures and the mean temperature anomalies (deviations from normal) for 30 December - 28 January are represented in the maps below. The second figure showing the departures from normal temperatures is a dramatic representation of how warm it has been during this 30-day interval.
What impact will the current conditions have on monarchs? At this point we don’t know. The first monarchs begin to move into Texas at the end of the first week of March. At the moment it seems likely they might encounter warm and dry (not favorable). However, we still have 5 weeks until the monarchs arrive and a scan of the weather records shows that warm weather in January is only followed by warm weather in March about 30% of the time – so it is really too early to tell.
==========================================
When we created the Monarch Waystation program last year, we envisioned that only Americans and a few Canadians would be interested in creating their own monarch habitats. We overlooked the fact that there are monarch lovers in many parts of the world and that the habitat issues we’ve raised to justify the Monarch Waystation program resonate with people elsewhere. Our oversight was brought to our attention by an inquiry about how to create a Monarch Waystation in New Zealand and an application from Erika Gates to register a Monarch Waystation on Grand Bahama Island - fantastic! We are happy to see the message of monarch conservation adopted elsewhere. Sending seeds to other countries may not be possible due to customs regulations and costs but we certainly encourage Monarch Watchers all over the world to register their Monarch Waystations and join us in the conservation effort. Complete information about this program is available at
http://www.monarchwatch.org/ws/
We are in the process of packaging the seeds and assembling this year’s Monarch Waystation kits - they will be shipping very soon in time for spring planting. Due to the response we received for the kits last year, we have ordered seeds for a much larger number of kits. We have also acquired seeds of two milkweeds native to California. These seeds will be incorporated into a limited number of “California Kits” that will only be sent to addresses from that state.
If you are interested in helping us promote the Monarch Waystation program please feel free to download, print and distribute brochures and other materials from
http://www.monarchwatch.org/ws/download.html
Thanks!
==========================================
3) Western Monarchs - by Mia Monroe
The Pineapple Express (warm and very wet tropical storms) hit the west coast for several weeks from Winter Solstice through the new year. Intrepid monitors visited sites in early January to see just which sites offered protection to butterflies, the status of the western population and to continue to provide tours to the public.
Jessica Griffiths from Ventana Wildlife Society offers this report: In Monterey County, the storms that swept through at the end of December had a definite impact on overwintering Monarchs. The storm scattered many clusters, and the two weeks of warm weather that followed meant that tight clusters were slow to reform. As a result, in January at many of the sites the butterfly numbers were much lower than what they were in December. Andrew Molera State Park is down to less than 2,000 from almost 10,000 in November and the private property site on the South Coast is down to less than 10,000 from a high of 18,000 in December (last week at that site we observed butterflies chasing each other and mating already). The butterflies at the Monarch Sanctuary in Pacific Grove have begun to regroup, and at last count there were 9,100, which is up from around 6,000 at the start of January. We also made an interesting observation at the PG Monarch Sanctuary: after the latest storm most of the butterflies were in the Monterey Pine, Monterey Cypress, and smaller ornamental trees. This is further evidence to suggest that weather affects the butterflies' tree selection."
Observations by other monitors show the Central Coast's role in holding monarchs through the whole winter. Pismo Beach continues to have at least 20,000 monarchs and this year's BIG site continues to be the Ellwood Main complex in Goleta, reporting 55,000 monarchs after the new year. David Lange also was able to continue protective efforts at the overwintering site, this year adding a protective rope to give monarchs undisturbed access to the sunny puddling area in the grove.
Lighthouse Fields, in Santa Cruz, where most of the area's monarchs had clustered this winter, seemingly had no monarchs after the big storms but early January warmth brought them out to re-cluster by the middle of the month.
San Francisco, Marin and Sonoma sites report no aggregates at overwintering sites after January 1 and no reclustering observed but a few stragglers flying in sunny spots to give hope!
Jan Southworth continues to give us the very interesting East Bay observations. Earlier this season it was noted that some of the sites, particularly San Leandro Golf Course, had three times their normal population and this trend was noted at other sites in the area, too. Jan says the Ardenwood population continues to be robust at 3,000 and anecdotally we've heard of "thousands" at nearby Skywest and Alameda Golf Courses.
The San Leandro Golf Course reports that they still have 5,000 monarchs in three trees, distributed in 5-6 large clusters. Public access stopped after the 22nd. Next year will be the 10th year this site has been open to public viewing.
==========================================
In recent years “blue” monarchs have appeared in ads so often that people are convinced that such monarchs really exist. In fact, we have received numerous emails inquiring as to where blue monarchs can be found in the wild. We try to tell people that the only location for blue monarchs is the ads themselves. However, the media plants powerful images and it’s clear some people just don’t believe us. There are blue morphos so why can’t there be blue monarchs? However, there is no blue pigment in a blue morpho. The color we see when we look at a morpho is due to the reflectance and refraction of light from the wing scales, a type of iridescence. [ For yet another manner by which butterfly scales and pigments act in concert to emit fluorescence, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4443854.stm ]
[ Photograph of a Blue Morpho butterfly (Morpho menelaus) by Gregory Phillips. Taken in December 2003 and released under terms of the GNU FDL. Prepared specimen wingspan is approx. 10 cm (4 inches). Abdomen has been removed to prevent staining. ]
In fact, blue pigments are relatively rare in nature, and belong to a different pigment group (usually bilins or bileverdins) than the one used to form the wing colors in monarchs (ommochromes). So, to be blue, monarchs would have to either evolve scales like those of iridescent butterflies or acquire an entirely different pigment synthesis pathway. Neither is likely. What is likely however, is the rare mutation that might change color or pattern. White monarchs represent such mutations and to me these are more interesting than the mythical blue monarchs of advertising.
[ White monarch (nivosus). Photo by Nigel Venters. ]
I knew we had written about white monarchs some time ago but I couldn’t find anything of substance in the old Season Summaries or past Monthly Updates. So, I Googled “white monarchs” and discovered that Larry Gibbs and I authored a text on white monarchs in 1998. (Evidence, once again, that my memory isn’t what it used to be and that I don’t know all the texts on our web site). The article can be found at http://www.monarchwatch.org/read/articles/nivosus.htm. The text needs updating to incorporate recent reported sightings and studies of white monarchs. I’ll get to that eventually but what brings white monarchs to the fore at this juncture is the discovery of what may be the first white monarch in Australia in at least 25 years. The very first white monarch in Australia was found in Brisbane in 1980 (De Baar 1982).
The recent discovery was brought to my attention via an email from Nigel Venters sent on the 1st of January. Nigel had been in communication with Anne Collins, a butterfly breeder in Australia. Anne had the good fortune to catch a white female monarch and two male monarchs with hind wings that were mostly white in Cornubia, 30km south of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
The name for the all white monarch form is nivosus. The partially white monarchs vary in the area of white/orange on the hind wing and are considered to be aberrations. Anne contacted Nigel to get his advice on how to breed from the white female. Previous studies have shown that there is a single locus that controls the formation of the normal orange pigment in monarchs. A rare recessive mutation occurs from time to time at this locus, that, when homozygous, produces white monarchs.
Symbolically, we can use uppercase “O” to represent an allele for orange and lowercase “o” to represent the allele for white. With these symbols, the possible genotypic combinations are, OO or Oo for individuals that are orange and oo for those that are white. Since the white mutation is rare, the probability of two normal monarchs that carry the allele for white (Oo) will be of the opposite sex and will mate is extremely low. Thus, the rarity of white monarchs appears to be due to the low incidence of the recessive allele and the unlikely event that matings will occur between heterozygous (Oo) individuals. The rarity of nivosus suggests that this form is less fit; that is, it doesn’t survive or reproduce as well as normal monarchs. In the United States white monarchs are only reported every few years. Considering the number of monarchs reared, tagged, handled, and viewed by those who work with monarchs and by the public, the frequency of the white form must be less than one in several million. Consider also that this form has never been recorded from the overwintering monarch colonies in Mexico that often contain 10s of millions of individuals. So, if something is so rare, what are the conditions that occasionally result in the discovery of a beautiful white monarch? The most likely answer is that such an individual is the product of the mating of a brother and sister that were both heterozygotes (Oo). Such a union would produce the classic genotypic ratio of 1(OO):2(Oo):1(oo) and phenotypic (form) ratio of 3(orange):1(white):
O o O OO
(orange)Oo
(orange)o Oo
(orange)oo
(white)
In other words, only one out of every 4 of the offspring would be white. Even so, couldn’t such a cross produce a number of white individuals? The answer is – probably not. The average female produces about 400 eggs in her lifetime and, in most cases, only about 1% of the offspring survive to reach the adult stage. For the sake of a demonstration, let’s say that 3% , or 12, of the 400 eggs/offspring survive to the adult stage. Theoretically, there should a 3:1 ratio, so, we might expect three of these 12 individuals to be white. But we are forgetting something: Monarch females mate extensively, an average of eight times in our field studies, and because sperm from the most recent mating is likely to take precedence over sperm from previous matings, only a fraction of the 400 eggs are likely to be fathered by the heterozygous male. This condition further reduces the likelihood that a cross between two heterozygotes will produce more than one white offspring. So, the odds of finding a white monarch in the wild are about as good as your chance of winning the lottery, maybe less.
But, what if it happens to you, as it did to Anne Collins? What would you do next? Here is what I’d do. If the nivosus was a male, I’d place it in a cage with virgin females and raise progeny from each female to which the male mated; hand-pairing is an option too. The progeny from all of these crosses (OO x oo) will be normal in color and all will be heterozygotes (Oo), a 1:0 ratio. Once the first generation was ready to mate, I’d allow them to mate only with each other. The progeny from these crosses should be 3 orange:1 white and once a number of the white adults were produced these would be mated to each other to produce a pure stock of nivosus.
If the wild caught nivosus was a female, it is likely that it had already mated. Matings of wild females can often, but not always, be detected by gently palpating the abdomen of the female to determine if a spermatophore is present. Assuming that a mating had already occurred, I would set the female up in a small cage with ‘nectar’ feeders and a milkweed plant in an attempt to obtain eggs. Since females are thought to derive nutrients from the spermatophores provided by the males, and to ensure diversity among the progeny of the first generation, I would introduce males into the cage to get additional matings. Again, all the first generation progeny will be heterozygotes and these can be crossed with each other to get nivosus.
Aside from the novelty of producing butterflies whose color is spectacularly different from that of normal monarchs, why would we want to develop such a unique stock? Actually, such mutants can be useful. When I was working extensively on the mating system in honey bees, we used a similar mutation known as “cordovan”. This recessive mutation produces bees that lack black pigments and they are quite distinctive. We used this mutation to determine how far drones and queens flew on mating flights, and to determine whether queens could distinguish between drones that were their brothers and those that weren’t (they couldn’t, or didn’t). Similarly, the nivosus form could be used to tell us something about how monarchs find and select mates. Does color matter to a male monarch or, does it simply fly after every butterfly that looks like a monarch in general size as well as flight speed and pattern. Or, for females, do they reject males that don’t “present” the normal color and pattern during courtship?
Milkweeds are known for the vertebrate heart toxins, cardiac glycosides, also known as cardenolides, they contain some of which are acquired by monarchs and by most of the insects that feed on milkweed foliage. To advertise this toxicity to predators most of the milkweed feeding insects have evolved contrasting color patterns – usually orange, white, and black, or red and black – that serve to warn predators that these insects are distasteful. These patterns are referred to as aposematic or warning coloration. Given the apparent importance of coloration to protection from predation, how would a white monarch fare in this context? Would it be regarded as potentially edible by predators due to the lack of orange pigment or would the contrasting black and white on a large butterfly still have value as a warning pattern? The latter is certainly possible. In southeast Asia where the danaine (milkweed) butterflies have their highest diversity, there are a number species that are black and white and totally lack orange pigments.
[ Large tree nymph Idea leuconoe, Philippines ]
A related issue is the visibility of the different color forms to predators. Orange monarchs resting in vegetation can be quite hard for us, and presumably predators, to see. During the fall migration we frequently receive communications from observers who liken monarchs resting in trees to leaves that have changed color. I’m not sure, but a black and white monarch might be easier to spot among leaves or other vegetation. The roles might be reversed when the monarchs are in flight, with the white and black monarchs being more difficult to see as the distance between the observer and the butterfly increases.
Although many mutations only affect one trait, in many cases there are numerous subtle interactions with other genes. For example, there could be an interaction between orange vs white pigmentation with incident radiation from the sun that might affect the behavior of the organism. These interactions are referred to as pleiotropic effects. One possible difference between normal orange and white monarchs may be the rate at which they heat up when exposed to the sun. If orange monarchs gain energy from the sun at a faster rate allowing them to raise their thoracic temperature more rapidly, and this certainly seems possible, they would be more active than nivosus. A slower rate of heat gain could put nivosus at a disadvantage by reducing the temperature/light range over which they might be active. On the other hand, a lower rate of heat gain might be advantageous by allowing white forms to be active at higher temperatures. This outcome is possible. When you learn the habits of butterflies for the purpose of collecting or photography, you soon recognize that most of the species seen in the open in the heat of the day are white or yellow in coloration.
Mutations that affect coloration are often linked to metabolic rate. When we worked with a stock of nivosus about 5 years ago, they seemed to be less active than normal monarchs. The lower level of general activity made it difficult to interpret the results of mating tests. In these tests, comparisons of matings by males showed that white monarchs mated less often. Did this mean that they were less acceptable to females or that they were simply less energetic? White females also mated less often than normal females. Did this mean that they were less apparent to males, that males partially discriminated between the two types of females, or that the lower activity of white females reduced the tendency of males to initiate courtship? Clearly, one of the next steps is to measure the respiratory rate of these two forms. In our nivosus stock, there were no obvious differences in longevity or fecundity between the two forms.
And then there are the eyes. Someone should take a close look at the pigments of the eyes of both forms. If there are fundamental differences in the visual capacities of these forms, it could help explain why the frequency of nivosus is so low in most populations.
Finally, what are we to make of the aberrations in which portions of the hind wings are white as in nivosus? Presumably the condition is genetic and, if so, how are these aberrations related, if at all, to nivosus? There is so much to learn!
I wish to thank Nigel Venters for bringing the discovery of nivosus in Australia to my attention and for providing the excellent images of the live and pinned nivosus, as well as the partially white male collected by Anne Collins. In addition, I wish to thanks Anne Collins for giving me permission to tell this story and Myron Zalucki for the reference to the first white monarch reported from Australia.
reference:
De Baar, M. 1982 An aberrant wanderer butterfly. News Bull. ent. Soc. Qd 10: 23, 25.
==========================================
Conservation of the Monarch Butterfly: Population Dynamics and Migration.
The big event in December was the monarch conference (8-9 December) sponsored by California Polytechnic State University (known as Cal Poly) and Helen Johnson of Salinas, California. The meeting was held in the Embassy Suites in San Luis Obisbo. The local hosts and organizers for the meeting were Dennis Frey and Shawna Steven who worked with the meeting support staff from Cal Poly. Helen Johnson’s generous support for the meeting extended to a marvelous lunch on the first day of the meeting.
The meeting was a mixture of talks by speakers, such as Lincoln Brower, Karen Oberhauser, Dennis Frey, Sonia Altizer, Andy Davis and myself, breakout sessions to discuss topics such as how to improve monarch-monitoring programs and poster sessions by students. Student participation in the meeting was supported by Karen Oberhauser’s Monarch Larva Monitoring Program. In addition, on the second day, we visited the local monarch colony at Pismo where there were demonstrations of tagging, discussions of monarch reproductive biology, etc. For those who stayed after the meeting, Karen Oberhauser arranged for a trip to Morrow Bay State Park and north along the Pacific coast to San Simeon State Beach and Piedras Blancas.
The talks were excellent and each contained new information on the population biology and conservation of monarchs. The substance of several of these talks will appear in future publications. The presentations by the students on the substance of their research projects were most impressive. This was an exceptional group of students and the high quality of the projects bodes well for the future.
The conference was a great success and those who participated appreciated the efforts of Denise Frey, Shawna Stevens, and the Cal Poly meeting support team for conducting such an excellent meeting. The amount of work that goes into the preparations for such an affair is substantial and is much appreciated by this writer, as is the generous financial support for the meeting provided by Helen Johnson.
After the meeting in San Luis Obisbo, I commented in a message to Dplex-L on the value of the student projects. I expressed the hope that these projects would be placed on a web site. It’s been done. Karen Oberhauser posted the following message to Dplex-L: “As promised, most of the posters presented by Monarch Larva Monitoring Project volunteers at the recent California meeting are now up on the MonarchLab website. To see them, go to this link:
http://www.monarchlab.org/research/Researchtopics.htm
Under the Researchers category, click on MLMP volunteers. The research projects within this section are divided by topic. You can also find research projects within specific categories using the list on the left. We hope to continue to add projects to this site, and encourage any Monarch Watchers on this list to submit research projects that they conduct.”
For those of you who are trying to teach students how to do science, or if you need a refresher course on how science is conducted, you should visit this site. The projects are outstanding and serve as fine models as to how science should be conducted. Further, the results of many studies provide valuable insights on the biology of monarchs. This is truly an amazing compilation of projects and it is a tribute to Karen’s program, the teachers who mentor the students through the scientific process, and the students themselves.
==========================================
The first tags recovered in Mexico this overwintering season were sent to us by Eduardo Rendon Salinas. Eduardo works for the World Wildlife Foundation Mexico where he is in charge of several projects including the monitoring of the monarch colonies. This is the second year in a row that Eduardo has provided information on the first tags of the year. These tags were found as Eduardo and his team began their surveys of the colonies. The four tags, and the data we have on them to date, are listed below.
I. Herrada colony, Estado de México on Wednesday 7 December
Tag Code Tagger/Tag Issued Tag Date Tag Location Recovery Location GCT883 Johnson County Cons. Bd.; Oxfod, IA ? ? Herrada (MX) GCR476 Barbara Tagami, DCCB Naturalist 8/23/05 Okoboji, IA Herrada (MX)
II. Chincua colony, Michoacán on Thursday 15 December
Tag Code Tagger/Tag Issued Tag Date Tag Location Recovery Location GCG844 Robin Dungan; Muncie, IN ? ? Sierra Chincua (MX) GJT451 Jane Grillo; St. Charles, IL ? ? Herrada (MX)
Anna Maria Moreno found the 9 tags listed below at Los Carditos, a monarch colony on Cerro Pelon. These tags were obtained by Jose Luis Alvarez, of the La Cruz Habitat Protection Project and sent to us by way of Medford Taylor, a photographer who recently visited the monarch overwintering sites. [ An aside: I worked with Medford some years ago on a story about African bees. Medford recalls that the bees took a dislike to him and got inside his veil, causing him to run in circles around the car while he desperately tried to neutralize their intentions to inflict pain upon his person. ]
Tag Code Tagger/Tag Issued Tag Date Tag Location Recovery Location GAZ445 Dotty Zales, Woodbury Co. Cons. Bd. 9/15/05 Westfield, IA Cerro Pelon (MX) GCR597 Barbara Tagami, DCCB Naturalist 8/23/05 Okoboji, IA Cerro Pelon (MX) GET599 Dawn Keller 8/31/05 Waterloo, IA Cerro Pelon (MX) GGJ330 Margaret Straley 8/25/05 Sioux Falls, SD Cerro Pelon (MX) GHH036 Tom Murphy 8/23/05 Cannon Falls, MN Cerro Pelon (MX) GHS100 Roger Sneve, Outdoor Campus 8/29/05 Sioux Falls, SD Cerro Pelon (MX) GHU556 Pam Martin 9/24/05 Stafford, KS Cerro Pelon (MX) GMB297 Laura Rodriguez, Outdoor Campus 9/6/05 Sioux Falls, SD Cerro Pelon (MX) GME487 Carroll County Cons. Bd.; Carroll, IA ? ? Cerro Pelon (MX)
As we complete tag recovery records, our online database will be updated so be sure to check it for the latest information.
The money available to purchase tags this year is quite limited. We only have funds available to purchase 300-400 tags at this time. If the winter is mild, we will visit the overwintering sites late in the season to purchase tags. If there is a massive winter-kill, as in 2002 and 2004, the number of tags will exceed the funds available for their purchase and we will have to raise funds for tags before making the trip.
If you would like to make a tax-deductible contribution to our Tag Recovery funds please visit
http://www.MonarchWatch.org/donate/
for more information - and thank you for your support!
Over the years there have been some unusual recoveries but here is a first for us – a tag recovered from a home's guttering. Becky Mushko sent us a picture of a monarch recovered by her husband John when he was cleaning the gutter at the front of their house in Penhook (eastern Franklin County, VA). The persistence of the tag on the wing under these damp and degrading conditions is evidence of the quality of the adhesive as well as the value of placing the tag over the discal cell on the hindwing. The tag (GHP573) was issued to Marcy Cunkelman of Clarksburg, PA though we are not sure of the actual tag site/date because we have not received the datasheet yet.
==========================================
We would like to thank all of you who have turned in your datasheets. The data from these sheets is being entered into a database as these records are received. The database will be used to extract the data for each recovery and to identify the regional differences in tagging and recovery success. We may also be able to infer the relative size of the monarch population from these data. Judging by the number of datasheets being returned, we suspect that the ratio of butterflies tagged to the number of tags issued will be the best in the history of our program. In most years only 25-35% of the tags are used. The proportion should be higher this year.
If you have yet to send us your datasheet, please locate it before it gets lost and send it on to us. The quality of the data improves as the records become more complete.
==========================================
Monarch Watch (http://www.MonarchWatch.org) is a not-for-profit educational outreach program based at the University of Kansas. We manage several educational, conservation and research programs - focusing on the monarch butterfly, its habitat and the spectacular fall monarch migration.
Previous updates are available online at
http://www.MonarchWatch.org/update
If you have any questions about this email or any of our programs please feel free to contact us anytime.
Thank you for your continued interest and support!
Monarch Watch
http://www.MonarchWatch.org
monarch@ku.edu
All material on this site © Monarch Watch unless otherwise noted. Terms of use.
Monarch Watch (888) TAGGING - or - (785) 864-4441
monarch@ku.edu
