REGIONAL— If you’ve noticed an unusual number of monarch butterflies in the area in recent days, you’re not alone. While early September is typically the peak of the monarch migration in our region, many observers have been reporting on social media or list serves like Ely Field Naturalists that they are seeing extraordinary numbers of these iconic butterflies.
The monarch is the only species of butterfly in the world known to make a long-distance, two-way migration, and it’s a journey of literally thousands of miles. The monarchs we see this time of year will fly all the way to central Mexico, where they will spend the winter clinging by the millions to fir trees in an area no more than several acres in size. Their wintering ground is located at about 10,000 feet of elevation in the Transvolcanic Mountains, an active range of volcanic mountains that stretch across central Mexico, from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico.
While their numbers have generally declined dramatically since the 1990s, reports from their wintering grounds last year pointed to a two-thirds increase in monarch numbers from the year prior. That suggests that the widespread efforts by people to plant milkweed and protect monarch caterpillars may be showing positive results.