Where Are They Now? 🦋

The Monarchs are on the move! Slowly they've begun their Spring migration from their winter homes in Mexico, the California coast, and Florida.

How do we know this? It's a huge community effort that includes you! First, we use some of the best science tools: our eyes. Groups across the country monitor monarch migration, watching for the beautiful flutter of wings. The second tool we use are tags. There are a few types of tags, but this sticker is a common one that scientists and volunteers need your help to track.

This sticker is carefully placed by scientists and other passionate individuals (yes, this includes you!) and travels south for the winter. As they travel, we are able to report the sighting or recovery of the tag to Monarch Watch who maps their journey.

"Monarch Watch is an education, conservation, and research program based at the University of Kansas that focuses on the monarch butterfly, its habitat, and its spectacular fall migration. Monarch Watch was founded in 1992 by Dr. Orley "Chip" Taylor and the monarch tagging program was launched in the fall of that year."[source]

A new tracking method was introduced in 2025, the BlūMorpho radio tag. This tiny tag weighs less than a grain of rice and is completely solar powered.  Cellular Tracking Technologies began this project after facing production issues during COVID, leading to an incredible innovation!

So, to the question at hand. Where are they now? Using the Project Monarch app, we can see that our friends are still south quite a ways. This tag, ROS011, was last reported in southern Mississippi. Can you blame them? We've had a few chilly starts this week!

As always, a huge thank you to Monarch Watch, CTT, and Project Monarch for their incredible resources! 🦋