News Flash: What are The Odds?
David Marriott and two colleagues (Seiko Sudo and Bill Howell) from The Monarch Program visited the Camp Pendleton monarch site to obtain wildlife permits on October 13th, 2005. While monitoring the population, Marriott tagged ONE male monarch for demonstration.
Nearly two months later, on December 8th, 2005, Marriott and a group of volunteers spotted the butterfly in a cluster of monarchs in Carpinteria at a site known as Carpinteria Creek (Santa Barbara County), about 145 miles straight line distance northwest of Camp Pendleton. One tagged monarch, one recovery — this has never happened before. The datum continues to support Marriott’s research that monarchs fly northwest to sites that have cooler microclimates when the temperatures are too warm in the Southwest (click here for migration patterns and previous records).
The Pendleton site has more monarchs this season since 1997. The estimate on December 4th, 2005 was 830. In 1997 it was 10,000. The population from 1998 through 2004 was never more than 150. Except for Camp Pendleton, there are few monarchs at all sites south of Orange County. Most monarchs are spending the winter between Ventura County and the Bay Area this season (click here for where you can see the monarchs this winter).
Photo by Bill Howell with an 800 mm. telephoto lens (Carpinteria Creek, Santa Barbara County, 8 December 2005)
The monarch in the middle left of the frame with blue pen marks on the upper cells of the lower wing indicates a specific code for our mark, tag, and release program. The code on this monarch showed that is was a male monarch tagged and marked at the Camp Pendleton habitat on October 13th and found alive in Santa Barbara County nearly two months later(report includes climate data for both sites). Our tags are folded over the right forewing — a thin strip of the tag can be seen in this photo. The tag has our toll free telephone “report number” when people find a tagged butterfly.