In the News

Bumper Year for Lloyd Center Monarch Butterfly Tagging

According to Senior Educator/Naturalist Liz Moniz, this has been a “bumper year” for tagging Monarch butterflies. As leader of the Lloyd Center’s famous Monarch-Tagging Program, she reports that children attending this highly anticipated Lloyd Center activity, delicately placed tiny tags on 118 Monarchs in a single day. This unique program has become one of the favorites among the school-children from throughout the south coast area.

Why are monarchs so plentiful this year? One reason is the mild winter that occurred last year in the Oyamel forests in central Mexico, where the Monarch butterflies congregate for the winter “by the millions”. While wintering, monarchs require cool temperatures to properly slow down their metabolisms temperatures below 28 degrees Fahrenheit have proven to be fatal to these delicate creatures. A second reason for the abundance is that the spring conditions were favorable to the butterflies migrating back to the north, particularly in the eastern United States.

During the tagging process, individually numbered tags are very carefully attached at the base of the hind wings of the butterflies, where they do not affect the butterfly’s flight. The tagging team records each butterfly’s ID number, location, gender, and other information on the butterfly’s health, as well as the weather when tagging took place.

Over the years, three butterflies tagged by Lloyd Center budding scientists have been recovered in migration. One had traveled 1,122 miles to Florida, another, 1,667 miles to Texas, and a third, 2,290 miles to Mexico.

The Monarch butterflies that migrate to Mexico in the autumn do not complete the return trip back to the coast here. They leave their wintering roosts during February or March, fly north, lay eggs on milkweed plants along their route, and then die in the southern United States. Their offspring, however, do continue along the northward route, instinctively thus completing the circuit.

Since 1997, the Lloyd Center has partnered with Monarch Watch to teach the “Mysterious Monarch Migration” course for elementary and middle school children. The program enables students to actively participate in an international research project that helps assess how these gorgeous large orange and black butterflies migrate to Mexico every winter. Tagging of any species should only be attempted under the supervision of a trained and licensed naturalist technician.