[Pollinator] Mid-season Western Monarch Count tally reaches 8,000

[Isis Howard]

Hello all!

Western monarchs are settling in for the winter along the California coast,
though 2025 is shaping up to be another low population year. As the three
week mid-season Western Monarch Count <https://westernmonarchcount.org/>
survey approaches its close this Sunday, partners and volunteers have
estimated approximately 8,000 monarchs so far—a total that may place this
winter as the second or third lowest on record
<https://westernmonarchcount.org/data/>. The mid-season tally last year was
9,119 monarch butterflies.  A final tally for the 2025 mid-season count
will be announced in late January.

Natural Bridges State Beach <https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=541>
and Lighthouse
Field State Beach <https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=541> in Santa Cruz
County remain this season’s strongest hotspots–with over a thousand
butterflies each–and are both open for public viewing. Other popular
overwintering sites that welcome visitors include Pacific Grove Monarch
Sanctuary <https://www.pgmuseum.org/monarchs> which is currently hosting
about 172 monarchs, Pismo State Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove
<https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=30273> which is currently hosting 449
monarchs, and Goleta Butterfly Grove
<https://www.cityofgoleta.org/play/parks-recreation-open-spaces/recreation-across-the-city/goleta-butterfly-grove>which
is currently hosting 18 monarchs (more information about visiting monarch
overwintering sites here
<https://xerces.org/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-visiting-overwintering-monarchs>).
In general, Southern California and the Central Coast–with the exception of
Santa Cruz–continue to see unusually low numbers of monarchs.

Many factors including weather can influence monarch overwintering
populations making bouncy year-to-year fluctuations
<https://www.xerces.org/blog/bounciness-of-butterflies> the norm. Another
warm summer and drought across the West, as well as the low overwintering
numbers last year, have likely led to a second year in a row of depressed
numbers. Underscoring regional differences, eastern monarchs overwintering
in Mexico <https://www.facebook.com/reel/1468196504278852> appear to be
faring better this season compared to last, according to early reports from
partners in Mexico.

The Xerces Society, Point Blue Conservation Science and Althouse & Meade
are partnering with California State Parks, the City of Goleta, Santa Cruz
County Parks, and other local public land managers to study monarch
butterfly movement during the overwintering season of 2025-26. We are
tagging overwintering monarchs with new ultralight radiotags
<https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/17/science/monarch-butterfly-migration-tracking-sensor.html>
at several sites along the Central Coast in order to track and better
understand their movement patterns. Read more on our StoryMap
<https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/eb67e9c975994de8a17b95e8290858be#ref-n-J6ggah>.


Plus, you can now follow individual monarchs on their migration via the
Cape May Point Science Center's Project Monarch App which allows your phone
to act as a mini-receiver and track tagged monarchs in real time! The app
is available for free in your app store for Android
<https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.celltracktech.projectMonarch.project_monarch&hl=en_US>
and  Apple
<https://apps.apple.com/us/app/project-monarch-science/id6460006970>
devices such as cellular phones and tablets.

Continued conservation efforts <https://www.xerces.org/monarchs> remain
essential across North America, and it’s up to all of us to keep collecting
data, stewarding habitat, and advocating for policy protections that help
monarch butterflies. View the Xerces Society’s Western Monarch Call to
Action <https://xerces.org/western-monarch-call-to-action> for more
information on key recovery steps in the West.

THANK YOU to all our partners, volunteers and funders who make the Western
Monarch Count possible!

* * *

*Photo by Diana Magor.** Monarchs cluster on eucalyptus at Moran Lake in
Santa Cruz, November 28, 2025. Look closely at the right side of the
cluster and you might see one of the monarchs with partially-open wings
sporting a BluMorpho tag! *

[image: image.jpeg]

Isis Howard (she/her)

Conservation Biologist

The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation

503.212.0546 | isis.howard at xerces.org

xerces.org
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