Happy New Year!

Greetings and salutations Monarch Watchers! A new year is underway and we are planning some big changes for Monarch Watch in 2008. To kick things off, we’re launching this blog which will allow us to distribute up-to-date information in an efficient, flexible, and timely manner. Here you’ll find all of the information previously reserved for our “monthly” email updates plus a whole lot more!

We’ll have lots more to say about this as we tweak the blog in the weeks and months ahead. As always, we welcome your comments and suggestions along the way – if you’d like to provide feedback please do so via our online community forums (there’s a “suggestions and comments” forum set up for just this type of communication).

Here’s to a GREAT 2008 for us all and thank you for your continued support!

Blog on the Launch Pad

We’re counting down to the launch of the official Monarch Watch Blog – blastoff is scheduled for 12:01am on January 1, 2008. Stay tuned!

PHOTO CREDIT: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (KSC-07PD-2923)

Updates From Mexico

Earlier I projected that there could be as many as 80-100 million monarchs at the overwintering sites this winter, up from the all-time low of 28.3 million of last winter. We won’t know how this estimate compares with the actual number of overwintering butterflies until mid-winter after Eligio Garcia completes his survey of the sizes of the overwintering colonies. For more information see “Mexicans predict banner year for monarchs” [dead link]

Here is another positive story: In a recent speech, Mexican President Vincente Fox devoted his attentions to the broad-based efforts to support preservation of the monarch overwintering sites. The text indicates a strong awareness of the issues and a concerted plan by the Mexican government to address monarch conservation. For a full text of this in Spanish please see

dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20011128/wl/mexico_butterflies_1.html [dead link]

We will try to obtain an English translation of this text which we will post to Dplex-L and add to our website.

Where Are They Now/Late Monarchs

We have been told over the years that the last of the monarchs that overwinter in Mexico arrive at the colony sites during the first week of December. This may in fact be the case. However, as I sat down to write this we received a call from Kentucky with a report of a sighting today. Last week there were a least 5 reports of late monarchs and there was one report from the Dallas area of large numbers of monarch larvae being found on milkweeds in butterfly gardens.

The exceptional number of late sightings appears to be due to the northern position of the jet stream which has resulted in an unusually warm fall for most of the central and eastern United States. The first two weeks in November were the warmest ever recorded for eastern Kansas. We are not certain whether any of these late monarchs are still migratory or have any chance of reaching the overwintering sites in Mexico. These observations seem to indicate that there may be a number of late monarchs each year which are usually killed as the jet stream dips southward east of the Rockies in October.

Adopt-a-Classroom

As part of our Adopt-a-Classroom program, Monarch Watch delivers school supplies and textbooks annually to students in rural schools near the monarch reserves. We will leave for Mexico in early January with a van-load of supplies and will spend a week delivering the much-needed supplies to at least thirty schools in the area. Thank you to everyone who contributed financially or by mailing in school supplies!

We have textbooks!

At the end of each school year, certain textbooks are no longer part of the curriculum. Some of these books have never been used. These out-of-adoption textbooks are then returned to the publisher or the state textbook depository where they are either recycled or destroyed!

Thanks to the help of a few school districts in southern Texas, we have collected hundreds of new Spanish edition math consumables for grades K-2. We also have Spanish editions of science and health textbooks. We met with several textbook coordinators at these schools to learn about the textbook adoption process. Everyone we met was eager to help the students in Mexico; we all agreed that it is better to put these materials to good use rather than recycle them!

Late Migrants and Population Size

Although there have been killing frosts over much of the northern portion of the breeding range, late monarchs have been reported with some regularity over the past two weeks and, as recently as yesterday (1 November), two monarchs were spotted headed in southerly directions in eastern Kansas. In spite of these reports, it appears that the movement of the main portion of the migration through eastern Kansas occurred over a shorter interval than in most years. This year the migration reached Lawrence, KS on 9 September and nearly all of the monarchs disappeared from the region around the 30th. We can usually count on being able to collect up to 30 monarchs per hour through 8 October but this was not the case this year when only a few monarchs could be found during the first week of October.

Based on all the reports received for the fall season and on the surveys such as that conducted by Dick Walton at Cape May, New Jersey, we’re still predicting that the monarch overwintering population will contain 80-100 million monarchs, a substantial improvement over the 28.3 million recorded last winter.

Where Are They Now?

The leading edge of the migration seems to have arrived near the overwintering sites in Mexico a bit early this year. Reports on Dplex-L, the email list we maintain for those wishing to post reports on monarchs, indicated that monarchs had arrived at 20 degrees north, only half a degree north of the overwintering sites, by the 22nd of October. By the 27th, large numbers of monarchs were observed by Dave Kust below the colony sites near Angangueo, Michoacan. (Angangueo is an old mining town located between the two major overwintering sites, El Rosario and Chincua.)

The local folklore is that monarchs arrive every year coincident with the Day of the Dead (today, 2 November). In fact, they usually arrive a day or three early. However, there are no long-term records or even adequate definitions and descriptions of what the local people observe when the monarchs “arrive”. Arrivals at the overwintering sites should peak in mid-November but monarchs should continue to arrive at the overwintering sites through the at least the first week of December.

Send Us Your Data

Please send us your datasheets as soon as you complete them. We use the data from the tagging to estimate the size and mortality of the fall monarch population as well as to determine the migration history of every monarch recovered in Mexico or recovered along the migration path. Without your datasheets these tasks become even more difficult and time consuming. Please make copies of your data (just in case!) and send them to us as soon as possible. Thank you for your help!

Tag Recovery Fund

Due to the abundance of monarchs this fall, we anticipate several hundred and possibly even 1,000 monarch tags will be available for purchase in Mexico this winter. Currently, the fund’s balance is $2500.00 which will allow the purchase of 500 tags. If you would like to contribute to this fund, please visit www.MonarchWatch.org/donate

Thank you!

Adopt-a-Classroom

So far this year, we have received $7,800.00 specifically for the Adopt-a-Classroom program. However, this is only about half of what program costs annually. If we cannot meet our goal of $14,000 for this trip, the remaining expenses will have to be paid from our operating budget, as we have done in the past.

We are currently working with many school districts in Texas to get workbooks and textbooks in Spanish. In addition to the many supplies donated by our members, we recently acquired 120 new solar calculators and a few used typewriters. Also on our list of items to take are overhead projectors with transparencies and musical instruments. If you know of a good source for any of these items or have any other ideas, please let us know.