Why there may be much fewer monarch butterfly sightings in the US this summer

[NickB79]

https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/fewer-monarch-butterfly-sightings-us-summer/story?id=107098635

Monarch butterfly sightings may be sparser than usual in the U.S. and Canada following a drastic drop in populations wintering in Mexico, researchers told ABC News.

The annual census of the number of monarchs that winter in Central Mexico showed that the population decreased "precipitously," the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, which conducts the research alongside the World Wildlife Fund-Mexico, announced on Wednesday.

I have fond memories from my childhood of trees filled with thousands of monarchs as they grouped up for fall migration. The last time we saw a large flock on our land in our trees was 8 yr ago. My daughter barely remembers it. I wonder if she'll ever see another. I doubt her children ever will.

[Biophilic]

1. It's confusing.

My friend has a butterfly garden in Florida with lots and lots of milkweed plants. She just about went crazy this winter trying to make sure as many of the caterpillars survived to become butterflies. Then just recently she read that people were being told not to feed the butterflies or caterpillars that were in Florida because they weren’t traveling down to Mexico as they were supposed to. She backed off all her efforts.

It will be interesting to see what happens this year. But it seems like a lot of the monarchs decided it was easier not to fly the whole distance south. I’m going to pass this info on to her.