PUTNEY – “The only way we know a lot of this stuff is because thousands of people have helped us collect data across the landscape,” one Vermont expert said.
From August to November the members of Putney Mountain Hawkwatch stand on the summit of their namesake spotting and surveying migrating raptors. But that’s not their only job. As they count hawks, they also count migrating monarch butterflies.
The Hawkwatch is one of the many groups in Vermont and the U.S. that have been keeping record of migrating monarch numbers. In the wake of changing climates, butterfly lovers have been concerned for their black-and-orange friends in the sky.
photo by Olivia Miller, UVM Community News Service
“The butterfly itself isn’t in danger of going extinct: it’s this great migration which we’re in danger of losing,” said Kent McFarland of the Vermont Center for Ecostudies, a nonprofit that promotes the conservation of wildlife.
To help the species’ hurting population, conservation experts in the Northeast urge people to record their observations through sites like eButterfly, iNaturalist, Mission Monarch or Journey North. People can also learn how to plant butterfly-friendly plants to help the critters on their yearly journeys.
With the help of community science platforms like those, the Center for Ecostudies is working on its second Vermont Butterfly Atlas, a five-year survey done every 20 years to document butterfly abundance statewide.
“It was not a good year for monarchs (in Vermont),” McFarland said. “Monarch productivity was terrible.” He believes the bad heat waves and heavy rain the state faced in July put a strain on the population migrating north.
“I do see more Vermonters interested in conserving pollinators, including monarchs, and a growing awareness of the ability for communities and individuals to be contributing,” said Emily May, a pollinator conservation biologist who lives in Middlebury and works for the Xerces Society, an Oregon nonprofit focused on the conservation of insects and other invertebrates.
“Eastern monarchs are definitely in decline,” May said. “We may not see it as individuals because population fluctuates.” According to her organization, western monarchs have declined by more than 95% since the 1980s, and their eastern counterparts have declined by over 70% since the 1990s.
Weather and climate change have played a part in the decline, but May said people can help out on a small scale by using fewer pesticides and planting pollinator-friendly plants like milkweed and goldenrod.
She also referenced national funds to put monarch-friendly habitats on working lands like farms.
When they arrive in Vermont, monarchs expect fresh milkweed to eat and lay their eggs on, but between delayed travel and a decline in milkweed, they have nowhere to go, and numbers for the next generation of monarchs will be a lot lower.
“Being able to nectar the whole way on their migration to Mexico is super important,” said McFarland. In the U.S. there’s been a significant decline in monarchs seen during this time, he said.
“The only way we know a lot of this stuff is because thousands of people have helped us collect data across the landscape,” he said. This includes groups like the Putney Mountain Hawkwatch.
John Anderson from the Hawkwatch calls 2024 a “bust” year for monarchs. “What we’ve observed is that there is a boom and bust cycle.” Last year they counted 318 monarchs, he said, and projections for this year’s numbers are looking similar.
“All of these little things that are chipping away at the population — the insect predators, spraying the cornfields in the Midwest, the droughts down in Texas — all these things are probably a factor. But I think the overall problem is probably the weather,” Anderson said.
The Pollinator Pathway, a volunteer organization spanning 18 states, plants pollinator-friendly gardens across the U.S. Julie Parker-Dickerson is a part of the Charlotte effort, one of several in Vermont. “The idea is that we would connect all of these gardens so that every butterfly would have a waystation,” she said.
She recommends leaving leaves and gardens up in the fall. “The more we leave up our gardens in the fall, the better habitat we’re creating for the spring,” she said. “You’re also helping the environment and keeping insect populations in locations they’re familiar with.”
The Center for Ecostudies also works with Mission Monarch, a community science platform that allows anyone to document monarch breeding. The platform was created by Maxim Larrivée, director of the Montreal Insectarium, one of the largest insect museums in the world.
“We can get fooled sometimes by a lot of the abundance locally where we live,” said Larrivée. “Having this capacity really allows us to put in perspective how monarch breeding and migration is happening.”
Larrivée said migration came very late in Canada this year. The country saw a similar size in population to last year, he said. But in the U.S., platforms recorded that this year the population was half the size of last year’s.
“It really underscores the fact that this year might not be a year that we can feel good about,” Larrivée said, “in terms of what the size of the overwintering population will be next winter.”
While the numbers in Canada were similar to last year, it doesn’t mean the numbers weren’t good, he said.
“We have control over making efficient efforts to restore monarch breeding ground and identifying the migratory record,” Larrivée said. “We can ensure when those monarchs are initiating their migration from the breeding ground in the north, they have access to all the nectar necessary to fuel up before they migrate.”
The data that Mission Monarch gains is used to identify where the higher densities of the species are, especially prime breeding areas, so that people can restore their habitats. Sightings from cities, Larrivée said, might not paint the whole picture.
“When you consider the effort in documenting them in natural habitats, you realize that their density is much worse,” he said.
“What we can do is encourage people to create more breeding habitat,” he said. Without a proper breeding habitat, monarchs will lay more eggs than natural, hurting their reproductive capacity and food source and causing most of the caterpillars to starve, Larrivée said.
“Monarchs have a high capacity to reproduce, but they need a break,” he said. “They need to be able to bounce back.”
Kate Kampner writes for the Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship.
