Milkweed Seed Kits

Our new Milkweed Seed Kit contains four (4) varieties of milkweed – the monarch butterfly’s exclusive host plant. Included are the following to help you create or enhance your monarch habitat:

Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa)
Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)
Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
Tropical Milkweed (Asclepias curassavica)

Seeds come in individual packs (approximately 30 seeds each) printed with planting and other information. Additional species and planting details are available on our website at monarchwatch.org/milkweed

Milkweed Seed Kits are now available via the Monarch Watch Shop

If you are interested in more milkweed species and other butterfly plants, you might consider our Monarch Waystation Seed Kit (6 milkweeds & 6 additional butterfly plants). Either way, you’ll be contributing to monarch conservation by creating a monarch habitat so be sure to check out our Monarch Waystation Program to find out how you can register your habitat with Monarch Watch.

Monarch Watch Bookmarks

Ron Brancato, graphic artist and monarch enthusiast, has helped us create a set of six (6) amazing monarch bookmarks. Each bookmark features a beautiful photo on the front and related information on the back. Themes include monarch conservation, monarch research, monarch facts, Monarch Waystations, and more! Distributing these bookmarks is a great way to promote monarch conservation awareness – they make wonderful giveaways by schools, nature centers, and anyone interested in monarchs and Monarch Watch.

Packs of 60 bookmarks (10 each of the 6 designs) are now available via the Monarch Watch Shop – enjoy!

Reign of the Monarchs in Decline?

The Ventura County Star recently ran an article by Zeke Barlow “Plight of the butterflies” with the subtitle “Reign of the monarchs is in decline, but no one knows reason for the drop in population”. The reasons offered for the decline varied from drought to parasites to loss of habitat. No doubt it will be difficult to sort out the various causes and it may not be possible to assign a specific reason, or reasons, for the decline due to our incomplete knowledge of where the monarchs that populate the coastal California overwintering sites breed. Nevertheless, the article caused me to rush off to my favorite climate site (Climate at a Glance) to check on the temperature and moisture over the 1990 to 2007 period – the interval for which there is good data on the total numbers of monarchs at the Pismo Beach overwintering site. The precipitation and temperature data shown in the two figures below represent the Western Region that consists primarily of California and Nevada. The data for California alone are similar.

Let’s look at precipitation first:

Figure 1. Precipitation for the Western Region during the Summer (Jun-Aug) 1990-2007 Trend = -0.25 Inches / Decade. The Summer Average = 1.16 Inches for 1901–2000.

The first thing to notice is that there is a negative trend in the data with an average decline in precipitation of .25 inches per decade. This decline may not seem like much but it can have a profound impact of vegetation over time. The second thing to notice is that precipitation has been below average 6 of the last 8 years and only average the other two years. The monarch population has been in steady decline through this period:

Figure 2. Declining monarchs. Used with permission of the Ventura County Star and Zeke Barlow.

The temperatures for this period deviate even more dramatically from normal.

Figure 3. Temperatures for the West Region for Summer (Jun-Aug) 1990-2007 Trend = 1.40 degF / Decade. The Summer (Jun-Aug) Average = 71.62 degF for 1901–2000.

Temperatures have increased 1.40 degrees F per decade since 1990 in the West Region and have been higher than normal for 8 years in a row. If you compare the numbers of monarchs recorded each year (Figure 2), with the temperature records you can see that there is correspondence between the mean summer temperatures and the number of monarchs the following fall/winter. In general, when the temperatures are below normal the population increases in size and when it is above normal it decreases in size. Cool years include 91, 95, 97 and 98 all with high or increasing numbers. Hot years include 92, 94, 96 and 99-07. Notice that the population increased slightly in 93, the coolest year in the period and then declined again in the hot year that followed. The high monarch number year of 90 can’t be evaluated properly because we don’t know the size of the population from the previous year. A regression analysis will surely show that temperature explains much of the variation in the number of overwintering monarchs at Pismo Beach. However, such an analysis may be premature since we are not sure how many of these monarchs originate from areas outside the West Region of California and Nevada. Further, to apply a regional climate model to a single location may be going a bit too far. If it was clear, that the numbers of monarchs reported at Pismo were strongly correlated with the numbers of monarchs at all California overwintering sites, then a through climatic analysis might be fruitful.

Ok, let’s have a quiz. Why might high summer temperatures and droughts have a negative effect on the number of overwintering monarchs?

Here are some key words: metabolism, nectar availability, host plant quality, life span, realized fecundity. Got it? High temperatures and drought result in a higher metabolism, lower nectar availability, reduced host plant quality, shorter lifespans and an overall reduction of realized fecundity (eggs/lifetime). In Minnesota, the summer of 2006 promised to be the biggest migratory monarch population in 10-15 years but instead the population crashed due to high temperatures and a drought in July and early August that was coincident with the egg laying that produces the migratory generation.

How about the temperature and moisture impacts on plants? The key words in this case are: germination, establishment, growth, flowering, seed production, and disease resistance. You get the picture. Generally, long-term droughts lead to a reduction in the population sizes of many perennial species, such as milkweeds and nectar producing flower species, and leads to changes in the composition of plant communities with annuals replacing perennials.

Monarch Waystation Seed Kits Available

The Monarch Waystation Seed Kits for 2008 (item#125522) are now available via the Monarch Watch Shop (shop.monarchwatch.org or 800-780-9986). It is difficult to predict the demand for these kits and we have been conservative in assembling kits this season. If you would like to receive a seed kit (or give them as gifts!), please place your order as soon as possible so that you don’t miss out. If orders exceed our inventory we will attempt to create more kits; however, there is no guarantee that we will be able to do so in time for the 2008 season.

Each kit includes seeds of twelve varieties of milkweed (monarch host plant) and general nectar sources along with a detailed “Creating a Monarch Waystation” guide. Seeds come in individual packs (15-30 seeds each) printed with planting and other information.

The Standard Monarch Waystation Seed Kit includes (appropriate substitutions may be made due to seed availability):

BUTTERFLY WEED (Asclepias tuberosa)
SHOWY MILKWEED (Asclepias speciosa)
COMMON MILKWEED (Asclepias syriaca)
SWAMP MILKWEED (Asclepias incarnata subsp. incarnata)
SWAMP MILKWEED (Asclepias incarnata subsp. pulchra)
TROPICAL MILKWEED (Asclepias curassavica)
FLOSS FLOWER Blue Horizon (Ageratum houstonianum)
PURPLE CONEFLOWER (Echinacea purpurea)
TITHONIA TORCH Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia)
COSMOS, Dwarf Sensation Mix (Cosmos bipinnatus)
JOE PYE WEED (Eupatorium purpureum)
VERBENA (Verbena bonairiensis)

The California Monarch Waystation Seed Kit includes (appropriate substitutions may be made due to seed availability):

BUTTERFLY WEED (Asclepias tuberosa)
SHOWY MILKWEED (Asclepias speciosa)
TROPICAL MILKWEED (Asclepias curassavica)
PURPLE MILKWEED (Asclepias fruticosa)
SWAMP MILKWEED (Asclepias incarnata)
SWAN PLANT (Asclepias fruticosa)
FLOSS FLOWER Blue Horizon (Ageratum houstonianum)
PURPLE CONEFLOWER (Echinacea purpurea)
TITHONIA TORCH Mexican Sunflower (Tithonia)
COSMOS, Dwarf Sensation Mix (Cosmos bipinnatus)
JOE PYE WEED (Eupatorium purpureum)
VERBENA (Verbena bonairiensis)

Be sure to check out all of the information about our Monarch Waystation conservation initiative on our website. Thank you for your support!

Monarch Spotted “Way Up North” in 2007

From time to time we receive a monarch story that is so compelling and well put together that it needs to be shared. The following account was received from Mick Callas, who was inspired to write us after having a chance encounter with a monarch in an area of the continent well beyond the northern limits of milkweeds and where such sightings are extremely rare.

Greetings, Monarch Watch! My name is Mick Callas, and I’ve been an amateur lepidopterist since my Navy uncle brought me my first case, net, and specimen butterflies in 1958.

I’ve always had an interest in the butterfly world and a desire to share it with others. Retired now and on disability, I still love taking my collection to primary and secondary schools, explaining the various families of butterflies and what devices they use to survive in nature. This winged jewelry never fails to amaze children and I’m often amused when stopped on the street by some 30 or 40 year old who says, “You’re the butterfly man, aren’t you? I was in 6th grade when you showed them to me – now I show them to my kids.” That is very rewarding.

And the children teach me as well. One question that began coming up was, “gee, Mr. Callas, they sure are pretty, but do you have to kill them?” Good question. I now hunt them with my camera, and build “collections” of pictures.

Another fine recollection is when I was stationed in Vietnam, in 1968. I had no interest in the war, or painting my face black and going to hunt humans in the forest. But the butterflies! Oh, the butterflies! So I’d take my net and go hunting. Twice I ran into “the bad guys” – I was never certain who the bad guys were, them or us – but I never had trouble. I didn’t carry a gun and would simply explain what I was doing to these other young men, dressed in black with grim but inquisitive faces. They became mesmerized, so fascinated were they that this dumb white guy from wherever – Millionaireville, America – was wandering around, unarmed, and so interested in their insects. Then we’d smoke the peace pipe together and depart. This story got around camp, and the Captain came down on me. Confined to base.

So I recruited a small army of kids – children of the civilian employees on base – showed them how to capture, dispatch and package butterflies in triangular envelopes. The stuff they’d bring in! I still have a number of cases of those insects.

Anyway, the reason I’m contacting you…

I moved from Oregon to North Eastern British Columbia (B.C.) in 1979. Among all the other amazing things to do in the Canadian Rockies, was butterfly collecting. To this day I keep a sharp eye out for flutter-bys. Last summer I was out fishing, standing on a road, and an RV whizzed by. Something caught my eye – a large butterfly had gotten caught in the turbulence and crashed to the ground, right in front of me. Now I’ve been living here, 800 kilometers North of the U.S. border, for 28 years. I have three specimen cases to demonstrate B.C. butterflies – specifically Robson Valley butterflies. The Robson Valley is in the Rocky Mountain Trench, at an altitude of 3,000 feet. And here before me was a dying Monarch. I had never seen one, or even heard of one, around here. Oh, people say, “Yes, I see Monarchs all the time.” No you don’t. You see a large Tortoise or Fritillary. I saved the insect, mounted it, and showed it around. Without exception, those people all said, “THAT’S a Monarch? Wow!”

Later I got to thinking, “I wonder if this incident is really as unusual as I think it is.” Then I read an article in the Vancouver Sun newspaper on Monarchs, and an article on the web. The web article referred to Monarch Watch, so here I am, reporting.

Well…is it unusual? The web article “The Return of the Monarch” by Robert Sheppard (CBC News, July 30, 2007) mentioned in part, “they seem to be really expanding their northern reaches.” And that Monarchs have “developed a unique annual migration that can see them trek over 4,000 kilometers – from Mexico to the Great Lakes region and back in eastern North America, and from Southern California to southern B.C. and back to the West.” I am most certainly not near southern B.C. In fact, you can spot me on a map in Dunster, B.C., on Yellowhead Highway 16, between Prince George, B.C. and Jasper, Alberta. We are “way up North.”

Drop me a line when you have some time between counting butterflies.

Best Regards,

Mick

Monarch Watch: What is unusual about this observation is that the butterfly was found well north of the known limits of milkweed. However, cases like this happen most years. Some monarchs even make it to Newfoundland from time to time.

Sighting Location (zoom out for more of a butterfly’s eye view):

View Larger Map

Mick: The small village of Dunster (pop. 200) has a gas station/general store across the river, and is located 20 miles east of the town of McBride – the nearest “town”. Another 20 miles east of Dunster is the village of Tete Jaune, where the Monarch was found. Tete Jaune is a natural meeting from ages past – 3 glaciers converged there, so the natural topography of valleys – the main one being the Rocky Mountain Trench, at 3,000 ft. elevation – may have been how such an insect found its way here. Heh-heh…it’s probably how I found my way there in ’79!

An interesting bit of history on Tete Jaune…during the Klondike Gold Rush (started in 1896), it was one of, if not THE largest town in British Columbia, with a very dangerous, rowdy population of 8-9,000 people. There must have been a small army of Mounties to control the cutthroats, camp followers, and dreamers.

Monarch – Mouse Connection?

Logitech, an innovative company known for its keyboards, mice, webcams and other peripherals for your digital world, has begun using the monarch butterfly in an advertising campaign for their new state-of-the-art MX Air Rechargeable Cordless Air Mouse. Oddly enough, this pairing makes sense – the mouse features orange LEDs against a black body and its “Freespace” motion sensing technology allows you to move the mouse gracefully through the air as you navigate your Mac or PC to listen to music, browse photos, or surf the web. It certainly evokes images of a monarch butterfly in flight…or maybe that’s just me.

If the monarch helps sales, maybe the folks at Logitech would in turn help support a severely underfunded monarch program dedicated to education, conservation, and research…perhaps one whose name begins with “Monarch” and ends with “Watch“? If any Logitech-ians are reading, please feel free to drop us a line!

Overwintering Monarch Population 2007-2008

It’s official – the monarch population numbers are low again. Measured at 4.61 hectares, this year’s overwintering population is the third lowest since detailed measures of all overwintering colonies began in 1993. The three lowest populations in this 15-year record have all occurred from 2000 to 2007 and the mean number of hectares for this interval is 6.3. The mean for the 7-year interval from 1993-1999 was 9.3.

On the surface, the difference between the last 8 years and the first 7 years would appear to suggest that the monarch population is declining. That may or may not be the case. At the moment, we don’t have the capacity to distinguish the impacts of anthropogenic factors (such as the loss of 100 million acres of breeding habitat due to the adoption of Roundup Ready crops, the annual loss of 2.2 million acres in the United States due to development, or the degradation of the overwintering sites) from those attributable to natural causes. The preponderance of evidence suggests that the monarch numbers are largely driven by climate and the lower mean for the last 8 years can be explained by less favorable climatic conditions than those in the 90s.

Based on the climate models I’ve been working on for the last several years, the lower numbers were not unexpected. The unrefined model predicted a total population of approximately 5 hectares, relatively close (as such predictions go) to the final number of 4.61 hectares. For previous discussion of this point see last month’s “Monarch Population Status” post.

How are the monarchs overwintering? It is now the 7th of February and all I can say to this question is: “so far so good”. The winter has been “normal” with most daytime temperatures in the 60s and nighttime temperatures in the 30s; there have been no reports of mortality due to freezes or storms. In another week, around Valentine’s Day appropriately enough, some of the monarchs will begin courting and mating; in the forth week of February some monarchs will begin the long flight back to the breeding grounds in the southern United States.

As to the coming season, will the monarch numbers be up or down? Much will depend on the conditions – primarily the temperatures and nectar availability – the returning monarchs encounter as they move north through Mexico and into Texas.

The numbers of hectares that represent the overwintering monarch populations from 1993 to present are given in the figure below.

Figure: Size of Overwintering Monarch Populations, 1993-2007.

We are indebted to many individuals who have spent long hours measuring the colonies over this 15-year interval, including Eligio Garcia Serano and, in recent years, Eduardo Rendon Salinas and his crews from World Wildlife Fund Mexico. We are also indebted to Carlos Galindo Leal who coordinates the monarch program for WWF-Mexico. The official report on the areas occupied by monarchs for each colony can be downloaded from the WWF-Mexico site (200K PDF file, in spanish): “Monitoreo de las colonias de hibernación de Mariposa Monarca: Superficie forestal de ocupación en diciembre de 2007”

[ Article revised 19 February 2008 ]

Crackdown on Illegal Logging in Mexico

Nibble, nibble, nibble…

Each year illegal logging nibbles away at the forests in the Monarch Biosphere Reserve. These activities originate with local residents in some communities and with outside businesses that hire and organize crews to invade forest plots, often at night, to cut down and remove large numbers of trees in a short period. The larger illegal operations operate boldly in the daytime defying local authorities. From the outside, it looks like the deforestation continues until it can’t be ignored and then the government steps in and raids sawmills, confiscates a few trucks, and arrests a some of the illegal loggers or “talamontes”. This scenario is followed by promises to protect the forest by the government and protection, especially at Sierra Chincua, in the form of the army and special patrols is evident. But then, somehow, the cycle starts again. Illegal logging picks up and continues until some threshold is reached and the government responds.

Shortly after he took office, the President of Mexico, Felipe Calderón, promised to eliminate illegal logging and to protect the Monarch Biosphere Reserve. Illegal logging picked up again last summer but this time it didn’t go unnoticed and as reported by the Associated Press and other news services on and after the 6th of December, the government conducted the biggest sweep of illegal logging operations in the history of Mexico in the vicinity of the Monarch Biosphere Reserve.

The newspaper accounts vary but the facts appear to be the following:

• 19 sawmills and lumber yards were raided.
• Approximately 6,600 tons of logs and lumber were confiscated. The amount of wood products was said to be equivalent to 600 truckloads and over 1,750 mature trees. Most of the forests in the Reserve have tree densities of at least 300 trees per hectare so this harvest represents approximately 5 hectares.
• The raids were conducted by 600-700 police and environmental agents.
• 45-56 loggers (talamontes), mill operators, truck drivers, and others were arrested and charged. The fact that those arrested were actually charged with crimes drew the attention of some commentators in Mexico since charges don’t often follow arrests in these cases.

In the past year, the Mexican government has shut down 59 illegal sawmills and charged 193 people with crimes associated with illegal logging. These raids and the government’s attempts to shut down illegal logging throughout the country are promising. A reduction in the rate of deforestation is badly needed. In 2005-2006, over 574 hectares of the 56,260 hectare reserve were deforested*. Losses at this level (10%) over such a short interval are unsustainable. Hopefully, the rate of loss of forests in the Reserve will slow sufficiently so that natural replacement and reforestation efforts will be able to keep pace with these losses.

*See WWF-MX report (300K PDF, in spanish): “PÉRDIDA Y DETERIORO DE LOS BOSQUES EN LA RESERVA DE LA BIOSFERA MARIPOSA MONARCA 2005-2006”

Janis Lentz standing along side the base of a recently cut old-growth oyamel at San Andres (2004).
Photo by Chip Taylor.

Stump of an old-growth oyamel at San Andres (2004). The widest diameter of this tree was at least 56 inches.
Photo by Chip Taylor.

Oyamel logs cut to length and placed so they could be easily rolled downhill to an awaiting truck.
Photo by Chip Taylor.

2008 Tagging Kits

We are now accepting orders for the 2008 Monarch Watch Tagging Kits. As most longtime taggers know, we have a limited number of monarch tags created each year and demand always exceeds the supply. If you would like to participate in the 2008 season tagging this fall, please place your order for tags as soon as possible so that you don’t miss out. The tags will be mailed out via USPS 1st Class Mail beginning August 1, 2008 – in plenty of time for the migration in your area. Read the rest of this entry »

Pismo Beach Monarch Grove

From time to time (usually during the monarch overwintering period) we receive information about the western monarch population – here is a recent communication regarding the operations at the Pismo Beach Monarch Grove in California.

We have 40 active State Park docents and volunteers working in two-a-day shifts at the grove every day from November 1st to March 1st. We have three “jobs”: (1) selling monarch related items from a portable trailer, grossing over $50,000 per season; (2) roving the grove to answer visitors’ questions; and (3) giving at least two talks per day.

The last two years we have had over 60,000 visitors and expect this year’s total to be even greater.

[Monarch Watch Note: El Rosario is the most visited monarch overwintering site in Mexico and is said to have in excess of 100,000 visitors each season.]

We always check with the other three major California sites – Natural Bridges State Park in Santa Cruz, Pacific Grove, and Ellwood Main in Goleta. We usually have the greatest number of butterflies. That’s true this year, so we are able to tell visitors that they are visiting the largest aggregation of overwintering Monarch butterflies in the U.S.

All western sites are down in numbers this year, we’re currently reporting 19,000 monarchs.

Dr. Dennis Frey, now retired from Cal Poly, has been our resource person for the past 15 years and continues to be a huge aid to us docents.

For more information about the Pismo Beach Monarch Grove visit www.monarchbutterfly.org