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Old Baldy, Canada | photo by Cameron Schaus
Conservation Issues of the Ventana Chapter | monterey county
Monarch numbers declining
January 2009

Watching thousands of monarch butterflies overwinter in our communities is a special benefit of living on the Central Coast. Over the last decade, the number of monarchs observed during the Xerces Society’s annual Thanksgiving count has declined. Comparisons of counts for 1997 and 2006 for nearby butterfly havens are:

  1997 2006
Lighthouse Field, Santa Cruz 70,000 14,000
Moran Lake, Santa Cruz 70,000 6,800
Natural Bridges, Santa Cruz 120,000 10,000
Butterfly Grove Sanctuary, Pacific Grove 45,000 28,746

 

These counts and others are posted at www.Xerces.org.

Clearcutting in the Sierra Nevada
Ventana staff photo



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