2024 monarch butterfly population second lowest in recorded history
A monarch butterfly on swamp milkweed. Monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed where caterpillars are born and nourished.
Texas’ 2023 ice storm and historic hot summer hit the 2024 monarch butterfly population hard. Reports from overwintering sites for the insect’s eastern population in Mexico show a 59 percent decrease — the second lowest count in history. The California population dropped 30 percent.
Eastern population monarchs migrate up and down the Interstate 35 corridor in Central Texas from Mexico to Canada. They usually begin to arrive in the Highland Lakes area in early to mid-March.
“This news is a shock to all who follow monarchs,” said Orley “Chip” Taylor, founding director of Monarch Watch, an education, conservation, and research program at the University of Kansas, in a media statement. “The depth of this decline is beyond our experience, and the implications for the future of the monarch migration are surely of concern. However, populations have been low in the past. This count does not signal the end of the eastern monarch migration.”
According to the World Wildlife Fund, which counts monarch butterflies in Mexico each December, the 2023-24 population occupied only 2.2 acres of Mexican forest. The previous season it covered 5.46 acres. In 2022-23, that number was 13.59 acres. The lowest was during the 2013-14 overwintering season, when monarchs covered only 1.65 acres.
The early 2023 migration from Mexico to Canada faced a devastating loss of milkweed, the host plant for monarch eggs, due to an ice storm in late January to early February. Later that year, a hot summer followed by a dry fall killed off sources of nectar needed as the butterflies made their way south, a time when they must fuel up for overwintering.
“Catastrophic mortality due to extreme weather events is part of their history,” Taylor said. “The numbers have been low many times in the past and have recovered, and they will again. Monarchs are resilient.”
Texas is the first and last stop on the insects’ multi-generational migration, making it the most important state along the route. The Hill Country area around Austin, San Antonio, and the Llano River is known as the “Texas Funnel,” where all eastern population monarchs pass. It is also the self-proclaimed Texas Butterfly Ranch, which exists on the internet and along the monarch migration route through Central Texas.
Humans can help bring the monarchs back, Taylor continued.
“To recover, monarchs will need an abundance of milkweeds and nectar sources,” he said. “We need to get more milkweed and nectar plants in the ground, and we all need to contribute to this effort.”
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Backbone Nursery does get in native milkweed but they sell out quickly. I have read articles saying more growers are growing them now so hopefully the supply will increase. The Hill Country has an abundance of native milkweeds – especially Antelope Horn. People letting natives grow in their pastures and lawns would help so much! Historically people have considered them a weed.
They can make a comeback we just have to protect the native milkweeds and plant more !
I’ve tried for years to find milkweed plants, tried growing from seed to no avail. Perhaps if nurseries could provide these plants, we could help the monarchs.
There is an organization that provides free milkweed seeds. There is a cost of postage and handling. They also prefer “group” purchasing as they are just volunteers and so a neighborhood who orders seeds and then distributes (or a group of neighbors) is preferred because they can do just one shipment. Check them out at livemonarch.com / help save / plant a seed program. Horseshoe Bay has a Mayor’s Monarch Pledge. Go to horseshoe-bay-tx.gov and search for “monarch” to read about that.