Arizona Monarchs Found in California and Mexico 2009 – 2011
By David F. Marriott, Ph.D.
Executive Director, The Monarch Program
Some butterfly researchers have long believed that there are monarchs that fly from Arizona to spend the winter along the coast of California. This theory was based on overwintering tagged monarchs recaptured in Arizona during their spring migration since the 1980’s. Also, experiments with early overwintering monarchs removed from the coast and released in Arizona showed that some traveled back to the coast. But there was no scientific proof that a native Arizona monarch would fly to California or Mexico to spend the winter until 2009.
8 January 2009. Two tagged monarchs from Arizona were spotted along the San Onofre Creek on the northern coast of the Camp Pendleton Base, near San Clemente. The undocumented overwintering site was first visited by Monarch Program staff on 8 December 2008. It is a Sycamore grove that has always been suspected as an overwintering site but never checked until recently. The population was estimated at about 150 monarchs at that time. When visited again on 8 January two tagged monarchs were spotted with circular light blue tags, with an e-mail address and a tag number. The monarchs were too high in the trees to read the tag numbers. However, it was the first historic sighting of a tagged monarch from Arizona to fly to the coast of California.
14 January 2009. Monarch researcher Paul Cherubini spotted an Arizona tagged monarch at the well known Ellwood overwintering site in Goleta, CA. He was unable to read the tag number without a spotting scope.
21 February 2009. Cherubini returned to the Ellwood site and captured a blue tagged monarch. It was different than the earlier one he spotted because the tag was not in the exact same position as the previous spotted monarch. The monarch he caught was tagged by Joe Billings on 7 September 2008 along a marsh in Canelo, AZ, south of Tucson near the border (to see a satellite photo of the marsh, go to Mapquest, type in Canelo, AZ, enlarge and click on satellite). It traveled 580 miles (933 Km) to its destination.
March 2009. A tagged monarch from South of Tucson, AZ was discovered at an overwintering site in Central Mexico. It few approximately 1,100 miles (1,770 Km).
17 November 2010. An Arizona tagged monarch was found at the Halcyon Hills overwintering site, nearly three miles south of Pismo Beach, CA, by a Cal Poly San Luis Obispo graduate student. It was tagged by Joe Billings at the marsh in Canelo, AZ on 15 September 2010. It traveled 645 miles (1,040 Km).
14 December 2011. A monarch reared in Chandler (near Tucson), Az was tagged and released on November 19th and found at Kino Bay in Sonora, Mexico December 14th alive. It traveled SSW 405 miles (650 Km).