PACIFIC GROVE — Butterfly Town is a flutter once again with monarchs, but although the numbers of winged creatures returning to Pacific Grove have significantly increased this year, experts say there’s still a long way to go.
More than 100,000 butterflies have been counted this season compared to the 2,000 last year, but this is still a tiny fraction of the historical numbers of a million monarchs fluttering in the sky.
“Now we can say that we have at least 100,000, which is pretty exciting,” said Emma Pelton, a senior conservation biologist with Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. “This year is reason to hope it’s not too late to save the migration, but one year of relatively better numbers is still a long way from recovery.”
Last week was the halfway point and peak of the annual Xerces Western Monarch Thanksgiving butterfly count.
Researchers like Pelton are tallying up all counts made by volunteers from different sites along the West Coast.
In 1997, 1.2 million butterflies were flying at overwintering sites along the West Coast. In 2017, researchers counted almost 200,000 monarchs, and that number was estimated to be down 97% from the 1980s.
There are hundreds of sites along the West Coast from Mendocino to Baja, California. Sites like Pismo beach have counted over 20,000 so far. In the Monterey Bay area, Pacific Grove has over 12,000 monarch butterflies, and Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz has over 1,000 butterflies.
“We had 12,225” two weeks ago said Natalie Johnston, the volunteer and community science coordinator of the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History.
Compared to the first count of over 1,000 butterflies last month, this has been a considerable increase of numbers that keep on clustering in this butterfly grove.
Multigenerational insects, like the monarch butterfly, tend to have population numbers that naturally bounce around. Their population numbers will naturally go up and down, even substantially from year to year.
A percentage change like this hasn’t been seen before.
“There are also other hypotheses about what particular factors may have contributed this year,” says Pelton. “And I think those are valid, but we don’t have the evidence yet.”
But what gives Pelton hope is that there is still a chance.
“Creating and protecting habitat for monarchs, reducing pesticide use, planting native milkweed, planting flowers, those that are like the bread and butter of what we need to continue to do,” said Pelton. “These continue to be the most important actions we can collectively take to help monarchs, other butterflies, and ecosystems to flourish.
“Planting native plants, both within one’s garden and in public spaces, the benefits continue to pile up and for the better,” said Johnston. “Sometimes in ways that could not be foreseen.”“I think that the monarch butterflies are an incredibly important ambassador for both the impact that animals can have when affected by humans both for good and for bad,” said Johnston.
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