CALLING ALL MONARCHS
Butterfly numbers hopeful as milkweed planted for nesting
BUTTE CITY » River Partners and allies planted milkweed Friday at Upper Butte Basin Wildlife Area to provide a breeding ground for the western monarch butterfly, one of the most beloved and well-known butterflies in North America.
River Partners, headquartered in Chico, is planting monarch-friendly habitat throughout California to prevent western monarchs from becoming extinct. There has been a 99 percent decline of the butterflies since the 1980s. Their numbers are hovering around 2,000, compared to historic populations which totaled millions. River Partners and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife planted thousands of milkweed and other pollinator-friendly plants across 50 acres to benefit western monarchs.
Milkweed is the only plant that monarchs will lay eggs in, so it is vital to the butterfly life cycle. Monarchs are also wedded to waterways, and water is also important to their life cycle. “Monarchs have a great relationship with milkweed,” said Alex Karolyi, River Partners director of communication.
The milkweed comes from Hedgerow Farms in Winters.
In February, there was a similar restoration planting in Bidwell-Sacramento River State Park near Scotty’s Boat Landing. The Wildlife Area is the last of eight sites statewide that has been restored to help monarchs over the last year, so the planting is a momentous occasion.
“This is a very well-loved species,” Lily Rothrock, River Partners marketing and communications writer, said. “They’ve captured peoples’ hearts. Butterflies sparkle and have such an energy.”
Migratory western monarchs are being tallied at their overwintering sites in coastal California in greater numbers than in 2020, with hundreds at some sites and thousands at others, creating hope for the struggling population. Overwintering sites are where organisms
pass through or wait out the winter season. These reports are very welcome after the population reached an all-time low of 1,914 butterflies last year.
“We’re excited that there is a bump in the population,” Karolyi said.
This year’s official count has not yet begun. The official count will take place with the help of over 100 community scientists during the 25th annual Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count, beginning Nov. 13. These early reports signal the possibility of a rebound in numbers, at least compared to 2020’s historic low.
On Oct. 16, over 1,300 monarchs were counted at the Pacific Grove overwintering site. This site did not have one monarch butterfly during 2020. Pismo State Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove and an adjacent site tallied roughly 8,000 monarchs on Oct. 20. Last year, these sites hosted less than 300 butterflies.
Additional smaller counts and observations from volunteers and the public have started to pour in from the Bay Area, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Big Sur, Ventura, Los Angeles and elsewhere, with numbers ranging from a few to dozens to hundreds of monarchs. Altogether, there appear to be over 10,000 monarchs easily accounted for at the overwintering sites.
The low count of fewer than 2,000 monarchs in 2020 followed two years of record lows of under 30,000 butterflies each year.
“We are overjoyed that migratory monarch butterflies have not disappeared from the western U.S.,” said Emma Pelton, senior conservation biologist and western monarch lead for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. “These early counts give us hope that, if we all work together, we can still bring western monarchs back.”