[Pollinator] Monarchs in California -- overwintering numbers alarmingly low

[Matthew Shepherd]

Hi everyone,



The Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count (WMTC) has been done annually for
the last two decades. We’re still completing the count for this year, but
preliminary results show disturbingly low numbers of monarch butterflies
overwintering in California.



The count results that we have from 97 sites show only 20,456 monarchs. In
case you’re thinking “wait, why say anything now before you have all the
data”, it’s worth noting that the sites already reported include many of
the most important overwintering groves and combined host the majority of
monarchs overwintering in California. In 2017, these sites hosted
approximately 148,000 butterflies, more than three quarters of the total
monarch overwintering population. The 2018 numbers represents an 86%
decline from last year—which was already a low population year.



We were not expecting this to be a great year because we knew it had been a
rough season in the breeding and migratory range, but it’s looking worse
than anyone had expected. If the rest of the Thanksgiving Count data show
the same trend as these sites, we anticipate seeing less than 30,000
butterflies overwintering in California this winter. In comparison, last
year there were more than 192,000 butterflies counted; in 1997, it was
estimated that more than 1 million overwintered; and research suggest that
there were at least 4.5 million monarchs overwintering in California in the
1980s.



To read more about the count and what may be causing this abrupt fall in
numbers, please see an article on our blog, Early Thanksgiving Counts Show
a Critically Low Monarch Population in California
<https://xerces.org/2018/11/29/critically-low-monarch-population-in-california/>
(
https://xerces.org/2018/11/29/critically-low-monarch-population-in-california/).




Thanks!



Matthew



----------

Matthew Shepherd

Director of Communications & Outreach



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