02/03/2025
Join me at Wild Brids Unlimited in Medford for “Saving the Western Monarchs” Feb 16th at 2 pm. You’ll learn how to grow milkweed to help save the monarch from extinction in the west. You must call them to register, as seating is limited.
With only 9,119 butterflies, this is the second lowest year we’ve ever recorded.
Every year since 1997, community scientists and conservation professionals have joined forces via the Western Monarch Count to monitor overwintering western monarchs. Surveys are conducted at the same time each year while monarchs are clustered, allowing scientists to compare populations across each year.
This year’s count is officially in, and unfortunately, this is the second lowest overwintering population ever recorded. 2024 was only slightly better than the all-time low of less than 2,000 monarchs in 2020. From 2021 through 2023, overwintering numbers had increased to over 200,000 monarchs, so this year’s sharp drop is troubling to see.
However, even previous years’ higher numbers are well below the millions of butterflies observed in the 1980s that scientists consider a stable population level. Monarchs are facing a variety of threats, including pesticides, habitat loss, and increasingly severe weather made worse by climate change.
With monarchs recently being proposed for protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, we are hopeful that monarchs will get the help they need to recover. Of course, Xerces and our community and volunteers will also keep doing everything we can to protect monarchs and other pollinators!
🦋 Learn more about this year’s Western Monarch Count, and how you can get involved to help monarchs ⤵
English: https://xerces.org/press/western-monarch-butterfly-population-declines-to-near-record-low
Spanish: https://xerces.org/press/la-poblacion-de-mariposas-monarca-occidentales-disminuye-hasta-alcanzar-un-minimo-casi
