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Substantially more monarch butterflies have arrived in California to overwinter

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Re: Substantially more monarch butterflies have arrived in California to overwinter

#41

Post by flyinghamster »

pengaru wrote: post #22
nightowl_games wrote: post #18

When I was a kid on a farm in Saskatchewan, there were hundreds of Cabbage butterflies in my backyard, and usually a dozen or so Monarchs. I remember the Monarchs being easy to catch with my hands, as if they weren't afraid. Now that I know how much their population has depleted, these memories feel extremely idyllic to me.

Not Monarch Butterflies, but my youth included a similar experience with Lightning Bugs. They completely disappeared from our yards by my teens, but before then, a major part of the non-winter experience was catching and releasing them in bare hands at dusk. We took it for granted at the time.

I'm glad the lightning bugs haven't disappeared in my area, but I wonder what would wipe them out in a region. I'm leaning towards drought, but insecticides and habitat destruction could play a role as well.

I'm in the Chicago area, and I see them in Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin as well. This was a good year for them in my neighborhood.

Re: Substantially more monarch butterflies have arrived in California to overwinter

#42

Post by germinalphrase »

deep-root wrote: post #8

This is wonderful news, 13,000 sightings in one location is 6x more than ALL western US locations last year. Western US populations have collapsed: 4.5m in 80s, 1.2m in 1997, to 100k in 2002, to 2k in 2020.[1][2] One issue is Monarch larva can only eat two plants: both milkweeds, toxic to their predators. Birds will vomit and then avoid them.[3] However, in recent years not one milkweed plant could be identified with…

Xerces is great and deserves your support if this is an issue you care about!

Re: Substantially more monarch butterflies have arrived in California to overwinter

#44

Post by vanattab »

ddoolin wrote: post #25
deep-root wrote: post #8

This is wonderful news, 13,000 sightings in one location is 6x more than ALL western US locations last year. Western US populations have collapsed: 4.5m in 80s, 1.2m in 1997, to 100k in 2002, to 2k in 2020.[1][2] One issue is Monarch larva can only eat two plants: both milkweeds, toxic to their predators. Birds will vomit and then avoid them.[3] However, in recent years not one milkweed plant could be identified with…

Random anecdote: I keep a couple of milkweeds casually on my 4th story apartment balcony in SoCal and I get many monarchs coming thru, sometimes a handful of cocoons at a time. I got a cheap butterfly enclosure and I put the entire plant in it to keep spiders and the like from getting to them either in the cocoon or shortly after. I purchased the plant only incidentally as it looked nice and the monarchs were a pleas…

I thought all monarchs made their cocoons in mexico?

Re: Substantially more monarch butterflies have arrived in California to overwinter

#45

Post by 01100011 »

deep-root wrote: post #8

This is wonderful news, 13,000 sightings in one location is 6x more than ALL western US locations last year. Western US populations have collapsed: 4.5m in 80s, 1.2m in 1997, to 100k in 2002, to 2k in 2020.[1][2] One issue is Monarch larva can only eat two plants: both milkweeds, toxic to their predators. Birds will vomit and then avoid them.[3] However, in recent years not one milkweed plant could be identified with…

And if you're in CA and want to plant milkweed, please make sure it's a native milkweed.

From https://www.latimes.com/lifestyle/story/2021-04-01/how-to-fi...:

> Which brings us to the reason why tropical milkweed is such a problem in Southern California. See, tropical milkweed works fine as caterpillar food in colder parts of the United States, when it dies back during the winter, killing any parasites that live on the plants. But in Southern California tropical milkweed stays green and blooming year round. Xerces Society researchers believe this evergreen milkweed confuses normal monarch migration and allows harmful microscopic parasites — Ophryocystis elektroscirrha, or OE — to multiply on the plants. Monarch caterpillars end up eating a lot of this nasty parasite as they devour the leaves and researchers believe OE is sickening the adults, messing up their lifespans, migration patterns and ability to reproduce.

Re: Substantially more monarch butterflies have arrived in California to overwinter

#46

Post by reportingsjr »

vanattab wrote: post #44
ddoolin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random anecdote: I keep a couple of milkweeds casually on my 4th story apartment balcony in SoCal and I get many monarchs coming thru, sometimes a handful of cocoons at a time. I got a cheap butterfly enclosure and I put the entire plant in it to keep spiders and the like from getting to them either in the cocoon or shortly after. I purchased the plant only incidentally as it looked nice and the monarchs were a pleas…

I thought all monarchs made their cocoons in mexico?

I'm not sure about the western monarch, but the eastern monarchs out here in the midwest grow as caterpillars here and pupate in to a butterfly. I don't think they lay eggs down in mexico, I think they only have the butterfly form down there.

Additionally, there are three or four generations of them as they migrate. They don't migrate in one huge push. So the ones in mexico will migrate back north a bit, lay eggs, and die. Then that new generation will become adults, migrate north, and lay eggs, and die. Eventually they will reverse and start migrating south, laying eggs, and dying. Finally the last generation makes it to mexico to hang out for a while and avoid the cold, before starting it all over again!

Re: Substantially more monarch butterflies have arrived in California to overwinter

#47

Post by reportingsjr »

pengaru wrote: post #22
nightowl_games wrote: post #18

When I was a kid on a farm in Saskatchewan, there were hundreds of Cabbage butterflies in my backyard, and usually a dozen or so Monarchs. I remember the Monarchs being easy to catch with my hands, as if they weren't afraid. Now that I know how much their population has depleted, these memories feel extremely idyllic to me.

Not Monarch Butterflies, but my youth included a similar experience with Lightning Bugs. They completely disappeared from our yards by my teens, but before then, a major part of the non-winter experience was catching and releasing them in bare hands at dusk. We took it for granted at the time.

I've noticed that areas in parks that have been left as "prairies" (basically, not mown and wildflowers allowed to bloom) have oodles of fireflies, and mown lawns have almost none.

I bet you'd get a ton of fireflies back if you left a small patch of your yard with longer grasses and wildflowers.

People get annoying at having even areas of less manicured yards, but you'll get a ton more lightning bugs, lady bugs, butterflies, bumble bees, etc.

Re: Substantially more monarch butterflies have arrived in California to overwinter

#48

Post by gbrown »

vanattab wrote: post #44
ddoolin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random anecdote: I keep a couple of milkweeds casually on my 4th story apartment balcony in SoCal and I get many monarchs coming thru, sometimes a handful of cocoons at a time. I got a cheap butterfly enclosure and I put the entire plant in it to keep spiders and the like from getting to them either in the cocoon or shortly after. I purchased the plant only incidentally as it looked nice and the monarchs were a pleas…

I thought all monarchs made their cocoons in mexico?

The migration requires multiple instars, so they reproduce on the way.

Re: Substantially more monarch butterflies have arrived in California to overwinter

#49

Post by fhsm »

pengaru wrote: post #22
nightowl_games wrote: post #18

When I was a kid on a farm in Saskatchewan, there were hundreds of Cabbage butterflies in my backyard, and usually a dozen or so Monarchs. I remember the Monarchs being easy to catch with my hands, as if they weren't afraid. Now that I know how much their population has depleted, these memories feel extremely idyllic to me.

Not Monarch Butterflies, but my youth included a similar experience with Lightning Bugs. They completely disappeared from our yards by my teens, but before then, a major part of the non-winter experience was catching and releasing them in bare hands at dusk. We took it for granted at the time.

Yes. It’s shocking. I spend the past few decades assuming that I’d left them not that they’d left the earth. With covid I temporarily returned to the farm of my childhood and they were one of the most conspicuous collapses.

They used to be so numerous that they defined their own time of day - the magical cooling after mosquitos and before bedtime. Not any more. They are gone and mosquitoes no longer appear to be afraid of the dark.

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