Monarch Butterflies

From milkweed munching caterpillars to stunning orange-winged travelers, learn why monarch butterflies are important and how you can help support these iconic pollinators in your own backyard. Animal Care Specialist Heather Cameron and Conservation Volunteer Coordinator Dawn Nygren- Burkert are here to teach us all about butterfly royalty.

Episode resources:

• ⁠⁠Transcript⁠⁠
• Follow ⁠⁠@podcific⁠⁠ on Instagram!
• Email us at podcific@lbaop.org
• ⁠Learn more about the North American Monarch Monitoring Project

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:05

Hi, I'm Erin Lundy. And I'm Madeline Walton, and this is Aquarium of the Pacific. A podcast brought to you by Aquarium of the Pacific, Southern California's largest aquarium.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Join us as we learn alongside the experts in animal care, conservation, and more. Welcome back to Aquarium of the Pacific. We are actually going to be going into one of our conservation initiatives that we participate in through the Aquarium of the Pacific. It is our participation in the Monarch Safe program. So SAFE stands for Saving Animals from Extinction, which is quite an honorable acronym. Very honorable. And uh is administrated through the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which is something that the Aquarium is also part of. So we get to be part of some really cool programs, and today we get to talk to two very cool people who do a lot of the legwork for our participation in the Monarch Safe program.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

Their names are Don Nigren Burkert and Heather Cameron.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Both of them are wonderful people. Dawn primarily is over our community science components, and Heather primarily helps to facilitate our participation in taking care of our butterfly and pollinator gardens here on site. But both of them actually work together and do a lot for this program and also help with community engagement as well, which is an incredibly important part of the Monarch Safe program. What we might not know about monarch butterflies is that butterflies are insects and therefore they are invertebrates. And invertebrates are one of the broadest taxa, and unfortunately, there are a lot of invertebrates that are not doing that well right now. That is such a broad statement that's like saying animals with a backbone are or are not doing well because vertebrates are sort of the inverse of that. And there's a ton of invertebrates. That's most species on this planet. Unfortunately, I think they get overlooked, mostly because they're tiny. A lot of them are so small. Some of them are less charismatic than our vertebrate counterparts. And so I think it is harder to convince someone to protect an insect than it is to convince them to protect a bird or a mammal or a frog in some cases. And so we really want to touch on a very charismatic invertebrate to kind of highlight how important it is to do this type of work for a lot of different species. And protecting monarch butterflies, what we're going to hear is that it is so much more about protecting an ecosystem and protecting the environment in general, because they interact with us and the environment in so many different ways. And so if we do a little bit more responsible stuff in the way that we interact with the world, we might not just be helping monarch butterflies, but we might be helping a variety of different species. And some of those species might be overlooked invertebrates, like things like monarch butterflies, like honeybees. I think people know that honeybees are not doing the best these days. And it is also critically important that we protect our pollinator species that provide a lot of economic advantages to us, but also they're cute and they're important and they maintain the balance. So that being said, during the last 50 years of the Endangered Species Act existing in the United States, we have unfortunately observed the decline of many different species of invertebrates. But the good side is that the Endangered Species Act actually works to provide protections for certain species. And so there are over 350 listed invertebrate species. That might sound like a bad thing, but I'm actually fairly confident that there are more than 350 invertebrate species that need help. But it is so wonderful to see so much representation for a otherwise somewhat overlooked taxon existing an Endangered Species Act, and that at a federal level, we are working to protect even these most vulnerable of our neighbors. Wonderfully put, Aaron. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

You're welcome. If you enjoy this episode, we would love it if you left us a review on whatever podcast platform you're listening on. It really helps us get the podcast out there. And make sure you're following us. We also have a Podcific specific Instagram account. Whoa. Podcific specific. Podcific, of course. Um, it's also linked in the Aquarium of the Pacific's Instagram bio, which is at Aquarium Pacific if you don't follow us there. But yeah, those five-star reviews really, really help our podcasts be shared wider. So we appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

If you liked this episode of the podcast, tell us.

SPEAKER_03 4:25

Oh, also we have an email. You can now reach us at podcific at lbaop.org. So you can feel free to contact us there with any questions or suggestions for future episodes or just feedback that you would like to share with us.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Please contact us. We love feedback. We love hearing from you. We want to know what you want to learn more about. And there are like 13,000 animals at this aquarium. We could talk about animals. We got so many, we got 13,000 episodes coming your way. 13,000 episodes in the next season. So be ready. We don't.

SPEAKER_03 4:59

Again, that's Podcific, P-O-D-C-I-F-I-C at L B A O P dot org. Okay. And with that, we will get into our episode. Let's do it. Welcome back to Aquarium with a PodCivic. Today we have on Don Nigren Burkert and Heather Cameron. So today we're going to talk all about monarchs and our monarch monitoring project. Erin, I know you have a lot of questions, but before we get into it, can we learn a little bit about U2, how you got started here at the aquarium? Let's start with Don.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Sure. My name is Don. I'm the Conservation Volunteer Coordinator here at the Aquarium of the Pacific. So I get to do a lot of fun things, typically off-site, such as wetland restorations, community science projects like sea turtle monitoring, and of course the Monarch Monitoring Project.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Yeah, your job is really cool. I get to see a little bit like sneak peeks here and there of the things that you're doing. And we've gotten to go out in the San Gabriel and help with monitoring some sea turtles that are strangely in the San Gabriel River and try to understand a little bit more about them. And community science plays a huge role in a lot of these different conservation projects because we don't have enough people to understand what animals are doing all the time unless the community is involved also, and it's incredibly important. So I think having a volunteer coordinator position that also helps kind of monitor all of these different projects is really beneficial for us. And Monarchs is just one component of that. But Monarchs is what we're talking about today. Heather, what do you do here?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

I'm an animal care specialist. I've been here for almost four years now, which is exciting. I know. I'm a local, so I've been coming to the aquarium for a very long time. But yeah, so an animal care specialist involves working with the birds, mammals, and amphibians. And this is one of the projects that I get to be a part of as long as or as well as the Mountain Yellow Egg Frog Project and things like that. So different conservation things, and that's my passion. So I'm really happy to be a part of another one and getting to work with people like you guys. How did you come to the Monarch monitoring project? We actually had, when I first started, we had like a plant force. We had a plant team, and um it was all of it. That sounds so cool. We like wore green capes, no. But we were trying to take care of all the plants inside of our exhibits because we didn't necessarily have a horticulture force at that point. So we were learning a lot about the plants, and then the butterfly garden and the pollinator garden were two of the places that also needed our help, and that Rob, our safety manager, who is also part of this project, he kind of recruited us to learn about it, help plant and take care of that garden. And then we were kind of able to divvy up which ACSs or animal care specialists were able to take care of what plants, and I ended up being able to work with this project, which is really cool. So being able to help with endangered species is pretty dope if you don't.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

That is pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

I think that it's cool that we have two different sides of the coin sort of represented in here. I think Dawn does a lot of the community science component of it, and then you get to do a lot of the hands-on work in the pollinator garden itself. And so we get to hear about this project from two different sides. We're so lucky. We are pretty lucky. Monarch butterflies are endangered question mark. Can I even back it up a little bit? Monarch butterflies are insects. What are they? They are insects. They are invertebrates. And monarch butterflies, if you don't know what they are, are the bright orange butterflies that you often see flying around, especially if you live here in California, although growing up in Hawaii I saw them all the time there too, which is really cool. And actually, I believe there's two different species of monarchs that live in the United States, right, Don? There are.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

There is what we consider the western population, which is everything west of the Rockies, so what we would see here in California. And then we also have the eastern population, so everything east of the Rockies. And that typically is going to be the population of butterflies that when they migrate in the fall, they're going down to the fur forests in Mexico.

unknown 8:56

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Very cool. And when we talk about them as being endangered, I know that for the Western population of monarchs, we are down about 95% of the historic population to just the five percent that we have now. Why should we care about monarch butterflies in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 9:12

That is the question, isn't it? Well, they're a pollinator species, and so pollinating really makes the world go round. That's true. And they face a lot of different things, but they are very important to the food chain in that sense. And not only are butterflies pollinator species, but they're a pollinator species, and that helps with native plants. There's a lot of invasive plants that are around the world, and especially in California, they outcompete all the native plants. And so if butterflies are drawn to the really nice native plants, they're able to spread different things like that and help kind of the ecosystem in that way as well, especially for California. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

Yeah, for sure. I think also too, like you you ask any one of our monarch monitoring volunteers, and everyone has like their particular personal story with a monarch butterfly. Like for some, you know, they represent cultural ties. For some, you know, it it can represent a particular family member or something like that. So I think there's, you know, there's the nature aspect of it, and then there's also that cultural aspect of it as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yeah, that's pretty cool. And I mean, pollinators are so important in general for really making the world go round, like you said, and for our agriculture as well. People will hire hives of bees to come and pollinate their farms for them because we don't have enough pollinators in the world right now. And so finding ways to create avenues for these animals to survive and thrive is really beneficial. And not only that, but you're right. I have stories from my childhood of playing with the monarch caterpillars that were very stinky. And I did not realize so stinky. They release a very stinky stinking. What do they smell like? I stink the stinkiest bug you can think of. That's stinkier than a stinky bug. Maybe. Yeah. And they're cute. I mean they're little stripy guys. They look like the rank pajamas. If you've never seen them, they're yellow, black, and white striped, right? And they have almost like little bunny ears for antennas. They're super cute animals, but I think everyone has some. Yes, very stinky. There was a time where I stepped on one when I was a little kid, and I'm sorry, I know they're an endangered species now. I promise I was in third grade. And there was a milkweed tree or a cranflower tree outside of my science classroom, and I would always go and play with the caterpillars. And so I have a personal connection to monarch butterflies, and I know that probably most people listening have a story or something from their childhood and a reason that monarchs are important to them. And they're beautiful. And on top of that, they're gorgeous. Yeah. That helps too. Cool. Well, monarchs are clearly very important. Why are monarchs important here in California, or why is the work that we're doing here in Long Beach important for monarchs?

SPEAKER_02 11:42

That's a great question. Especially in California. So when we talk about overwintering, that is when the monarchs will come to their specific, very niche kind of microclimate where they can wait out the winter and survive through the winter. So here on the West Coast, they come to the coast to do that. It's not like down in Mexico for the eastern population, that they're in a very concentrated area where they overwinter. And so it's very protected. Here in California, it's all along our coast. So it's really critical for us to kind of all work together because those butterflies could be on public land, they could be on private land, they could be on golf courses, they could be on military bases. And so for us to all work together to ensure that we're having, you know, that there are trees for them to overwinter in, that there are pesticide-free habitats for them, that they have the host plants like the milkweed for when they're in their lava stage, that's really important for us to concentrate on here in California.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

So effectively, the eastern monarchs, we can protect a smaller area in Mexico in order for those animals to overwinter. But functionally, the Western monarchs are the ones that kind of spread all out. So we have more responsibility to create these corridors and allow these animals to migrate. That's very interesting and does kind of feel like we have more of a community responsibility to protect these animals, much more than not that we shouldn't protect more habitat, but it is nice that the eastern population at least has a identified site where they would go to overwinter. What does it look like when monarchs are overwintering? Do they have specific trees that they prefer to sleep in, hang out in?

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Yeah, it it was kind of like when I was looking it up and refreshing, they go back to like the same nooks and crannies of the same tree, which is really, really cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

I wonder how they know. I instinct geniuses. But question mark, is it the same generation after generation, or is it the same individuals? That is the great question.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

So that is also what I learned. So there are different generations within the monarch, Western monarch population. So the first through the third are the ones that last about two to five weeks. And those ones are the ones that are reproducing, and after they do their job, they die off. That fourth generation is the generation that goes through that nine-month migration. And they do the over wintering and things like that. And so in specific areas, like Don was saying along the coast, they're gonna find those specific areas that they know to go to mysteriously. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

That is so odd to think that there are also multiple generations of the exact same species that display different behavior. Is it do we know what influences that type of behavior? Is it environmental cues? Is it something genetic within them?

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Yeah, there are some environmental cues, and this kind of goes into rearing practices, which is not legal anymore in the state of California. But with with best practices for the states that are able to, and please look up your state's laws. But in the states that are able to, it's said that sometimes rearing caterpillars indoors can actually throw off those environmental cues. So they need those signals like temperature to know when it's time to start migrating or sunlight. It's thought that that can actually kind of trigger when they're supposed to start making their way over. So those environmental cues might guide them to where they need to go.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

Trevor Burrus, Jr. And that might start as early as that caterpillar stage. And so things that we do, even if you think I'm just bringing this caterpillar inside because it's a cold day, might throw off its entire life trajectory because its hormones are different. That's crazy to think about. You've changed his whole life just by bringing them inside. And that's uh obviously I think people have different experiences rearing monarchs. And in California, like Don said, it is not legal anymore to rear a monarch at any life stage, and that is primarily due to a lot of wildlife protections and the potential that that has to disrupt that animal's life history and potentially introduce disease into the wild population, which we can talk about in a little bit. Illegal without a permit. Yes. And there are some facilities that do captive rearing that have a permit here in California, or there are facilities that do it elsewhere where you do not require one. And there are some potential downsides to that as well, which we can talk about. But I do also want to recognize that I know for a lot of people the experience of seeing something go through all of those life stages is incredibly life changing. Impactful, it is impactful. For sure. And I think we've all seen a caterpillar go into a chrysalis and then emerge as a butterfly, and at least at some point in our lives have observed that cycle, whether it be inside or outside. And I understand the impact that that has on people. And so although it is illegal in California to do that inside, you can encourage that behavior in your backyard by planting pollinator plants if appropriate and not using pesticides and doing things that are monarch happy practices that you can have in your yard. Which we'll learn more about in a little bit. Absolutely. Can you talk a little bit about why captive rearing, other than throwing off environmental cues, are there other issues with that that potentially make it so that that's not best practice?

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Yeah. For captive rear so monarchs didn't really evolve to have high concentrations in a singular space. They kind of compete with each other for milkweed and things like that. One caterpillar can actually eat an entire milkweed plant. Really? Good for him. The whole plant. So when you put them in close quarters like that, it's very easy for diseases to spread. There is a parasite called OE, and that protozoan parasite can transfer really easily from monarch to monarch. Actually, if there is a monarch butterfly that lands on a milkweed plant, it can deposit the parasite onto the milkweed plant, so then the next time another butterfly lands on it, it can pick it up. Pick that up. And then it can give that to the offspring, and it can cause things like wing deformations. And so they're not typically as strong of flyers, or they're not able to survive. And so growing them in close quarters like that can just easily spread.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Increase the prevalence of that type of parasite.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

I know that it is only found in like the royal butterflies, so to speak. So the monarchs, the queens. They're gunning for the throne.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Jeez. Only royalty gets impacted by this. That's interesting. Are they are those butterflies all fairly closely related? The like royal butterflies? They must be. Great question. If this specific parasite has kind of gone after that group.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

It's a parasite that it's not fatal to that animal, but it can. It says it was like debilitating, affecting their fitness and their migratory success. So it's a double whammy.

SPEAKER_03 18:56

It's just debilitating. Are there any other diseases that they're prone to?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

I didn't read anything specific other than this is kind of the strongest. This is the most in the human impactful pesticides and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

There are like flies and things that can lay their eggs in the larva. But not so much disease.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Can you tell us a little bit about the monarch butterfly and their relationship with a plant called milkweed and what is sort of the importance of that plant to the species? Because I feel like a lot of this revolves around milkweed.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Yeah. Yeah. So the milkweed is going to be the only plant that the monarch butterfly caterpillar can eat. So that is its host plant. It needs that plant to eventually metamorphose, go into his chrysalis and become that beautiful butterfly. But what's really cool is that there's different host plants for different for different butterflies. So the willow tree is for the swallowtails. The buckwheat is for the El Segundo blues, which is pretty cool. And so now we know like those plants are very important. There are native California milkweed plants. There's a bunch of different milk, there's a hundred different species of milkweed, but here we have like narrow leaf, like woolly is what I saw. The showy, yeah, woolly and showy, which is really cute. But what we have in our butterfly garden right now is the narrow leaf milkweed. And so milkweed is actually very toxic and it's very beneficial for a bunch of different types of pollinators as well, bees and wastes. Yes, yeah. But that is very important for that caterpillar to be eating that. Like she said, they can eat one plant, which is amazing. That's crazy. How big of a plant? They get pretty tall. They get up to a few feet. And so, but yeah, so they're very toxic. It has like so if I ate it, it might cause it has different enzymes and enzymes in it, and it could cause a bunch of different things, and it could be fatal with a huge consumption. But these animals can't- You ate an entire plant. I ate an entire plant. I don't do that. I have it right here. I was gonna look at it. There we go. Okay. So the milkweed toxin, it's a milky sap, and it has cardioglycosides and cardinaloids.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Oh. It sounds scary. Cardinaloids, yeah. It sounds very scary. Yeah, right. If you don't know what that is, someone does know that. And so cardinoids.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Cardinaloids. And so toxic if if consumed in large quantities, but the cardinaloids, they can hit like your liver and stuff like that. Not fun. So it kind of mess you up.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

What part of the plant are they eating? Are they eating all of it? Or are they eating the leaves? The leaves specifically.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

And then once they become butterflies, they can get nectar from the flowers. Okay. Which is also important.

SPEAKER_03 21:37

And when they are butterflies, they can get nectar from almost any flower, or is it specifically milkweed?

SPEAKER_02 21:43

No, an any flower. And so that's important too. So for when they are in their larval stage, so the caterpillars, they do need the milkweed. That's that's their host plant that they need to survive. But when they become butterflies, that's when they need Nectar plants, and so if people don't want to plant milkweed because they've got, you know, small children or pets and they don't want the toxic plant in their yard, you can also help by planting native nectar plants. Native is best, one, because they're, you know, water friendly.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

You don't use drought resistant. Yeah. Especially in California. Native tends to mean we're using less water because the plants here have evolved to do okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

It's also really nice when you don't you can just kind of set those plants and forget them. They don't need a ton of meat here because they're from here. This is where they survive. And so hopefully having those native nectar plants to fuel them as they go on their long migration. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

If you lived here in California, what are some species of really good nectar plants that people could plant that are maybe easily available for people?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

We have some cool ones in the butterfly garden and our so we have two of them. We have a butterfly garden and a pollinator garden. But they're essentially the same, but they're just different areas really different. But they function the same. So we have some lilac verbena out there, some California buckwheat, some white sage. We don't have any poppies, but that's a good one. That's a California, and that's the California state flower. They're beautiful too. Some yellow yarrow. We have monkey flower out there, and we also have some willows for the swallow tails. So it's kind of cool that you can have uh and there's lists. You can go out there and there are lists of different native species that you can plant that are for nectar and then the milkweed for the caterpillars.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

That's pretty cool. So we do a lot of kind of maintaining both a pollinator garden and the butterfly garden. What is the difference between the two?

SPEAKER_00 23:39

The butterfly garden's gonna have the milkweed. That's the big difference. Yep. And we're doing something a little bit different this year, and we put the milkweed in wine barrels so that we can easily remove those milkweed plants when the time comes. So the point is that you don't want your butterflies to stay in an overwintering spot when they're supposed to be migrating. And so that fourth generation, you want to make sure that you are taking out the milkweed or clipping it back at a certain time. And so they overwinter from new November until maybe March a little bit. And then at that point, you don't need the milkweed anymore after that. Is that right? Yeah. So we're trying it where it's not in the ground, it's not going to disrupt the rest of the pollinator plants that we have and the nectaring plants. We can just remove those wine barrels and then the pollinator or that butterfly garden is still a pollinator garden after that. So we're hoping that works out this year.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

Aaron Ross Powell And specifically the reason that even with the native milkweed is uh we're the removing it is we live in a beautiful, temperate climate. And so even though normally those milkweed plants would die back in that fall. Because of the beautiful weather, they continue growing. And so we're doing our best practices to to do what would be natural for their cycle. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

The plants don't know it's November sometimes here.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

They don't. Is that primarily just because we're so southern that our plants just kind of persist through the winter?

SPEAKER_02 25:06

Yeah, we just have mild weather and so a frost that would, you know, kill another milkweed plant further up the coast, maybe. That's just still live in here.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

That's pretty much so if we have milkweed that kind of persists through the winter, that might inadvertently encourage the monarchs that are supposed to be migrating to stay and then lay their next generation there and then potentially shorten that generation and throw off all the things that they're supposed to be doing. I'm guessing that then impacts who's overwintering upstate, and then what numbers we're getting when we're counting them, and then also their general natural history and their behavior. Do you think? And this question might be difficult. I don't know if there's an answer to this question. Do monarchs that have sort of fallen out of that life cycle are they just kind of gone from the population, or is there a chance that they can be reintegrated back into the breeding population once the migrating animals have returned to Southern California?

SPEAKER_02 26:01

Aaron Ross Powell I think it's interesting. And the science with monarchs is ever evolving. It seems complicated. Yes. And so this is why we have the monarch monitoring project. The information is constantly changing, and and we are, you know, as a group doing our best to keep up with that, to educate each other, the staff, the public. And so they think that there might actually be a resident population here in California. And scientists are looking at that. So that's something that we are very interested in and would love to learn more about in the future. So possible.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Yeah. Seems like they have a lot going on with their different life stages. And it does feel like almost anything can throw that off. And it feels like such a delicate balance that we have to maintain in order for these animals to survive and persist. If you are living coastally, that is when it's most important to remove your milkweed, right? It's like within a mile of the coast.

SPEAKER_02 26:55

And and Santa Barbara also has an overwintering site, and there are kind of different rules for different counting, different counties. So the general rule is if you're within a mile of the coast, remove the milkweed, and then Santa Barbara it's within five miles of the coast.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Okay. Interesting. So when they are then migrating up the coast or migrating around and are here on our west coast, where's some places where people might be able to go see monarchs and what time of year? Because I feel like ecotourism is a really big draw for people. And also who doesn't want to see a bunch of butterflies kind of having their nice winter time in a tree?

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Aaron Ross Powell Well, after you said that they go in that one area in Mexico, now I'm trying to go and go see that really really big population.

SPEAKER_03 27:39

I think we actually do need to go for the podcast. We need some content. Yes, some photos.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

But here in on our coast in California, we have Pismo State Beach, and that one is supposed to have one of the largest overwintering population type of concentration because we don't have that much concentration, but right there they hit a lot. Could be 20,000 to 200,000. Wow. I know, isn't that really cool? And there's also the Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz. There's Pacific Grove and Goleta Monarch Butterfly Grove. And so, yep, Santa Barbara, all up there and everything. And there's also a bunch of maybe subplaces too, and people in different areas that have specific overwintering sites and that they are able to monitor those overwintering sites.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

So it's kind of cool. I wonder how they know to go back every time.

SPEAKER_02 28:29

And recently, so in the past they have had a Thanksgiving count and then the winter count, which is like they announced that one in in January. They have started also a Halloween count. So try and catch those early, early birds, so to speak. They love holidays. Yes, they do.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

When you're saying count, you mean physically go out and count. Who is counting?

SPEAKER_02 28:55

So that's a really fun thing. You can actually go and become certified and volunteer. Anyone's counting, you can go and get certified and do the Western monarch count. And here on the California coast, um the way that our butterfly populations are distributed in their overwintering sites, they do physically count every single butterfly. Whereas down in Mexico, what they do is they just kind of estimate the hectares that they're taking up down there.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

And then they just kind of multiply that by the rough density of the monarchs. Exactly. So we're counting 200,000 butterflies per site, potentially, up to if we're on a really good year, hopefully.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

I hope so, because the this last year's count was sad. What was it? It was under 10,000. Total? Which is the second lowest uh number since they've started counting. Aaron Powell What was the first lowest? 2020.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

That's interesting. I remember you had given a lunch and learn lecture on what the 2020 butterfly count was and sort of some of the details surrounding that. So what happened in 2020 and what happened this past year that the monarch butterfly populations are so impacted?

SPEAKER_02 30:04

Aaron Powell There are a few different thoughts, and I think that goes hand in hand with what you said about like there's a delicate kind of balance here in in the butterfly ecosystem. So it was pointed out that in 2020, if anyone remembers, I know there was a lot going on that year. There were a lot of fires that happened kind of in that general area where they overwinter. And so there's thought that that could have had an impact. And then this past year, our volunteers noticed, um, and it's been discussed, we had a really wet spring and it was pretty cold. And then the monarchs, for us it seemed that the monarchs were starting to get back kind of late. And so when they went off on their migration, we had a really warm fall. And so it I think i it looked like everything just ki got kind of pushed back. And so because of that warm fall, they the cues to get back to overwinter were a little late, and then there was, you know, that cold storm, that cold snap, and so by the time that they were coming back, they were caught in the middle of that cold storm. And so they I don't think they were able to survive that.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

So the primary purpose of them migrating and moving from spot to spot is to survive colder temperatures and then find food where it's most available. Exactly. And if those seasonal cues are thrown off, they might not make it because their body is like, don't go yet. We're probably fine. So I'm assuming that with all that being said, climate change is likely a huge component of why monarch butterflies are potentially not doing as well these days as we've seen. Increased fires, increased rain. We've had plenty of examples of more extreme weather patterns, whether or not it is just warming. I think it is a little bit of everything that's happening right now. And given how many different sensitive cues monarchs rely on, that's probably throwing them off a little bit, isn't it?

unknown 32:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Bummer.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

Can we probably unfortunately safely expect that due to the wildfires this year in California, we'll see that impacted later this year?

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Aaron Ross Powell It's definitely a possibility, especially if the I think that there was at least one grove where they overwintered into Pangy Canyon and the fire burned through there as we all know. So that's possible that that is now an overwintering site that's no longer available to them. That is a bummer.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Climate change and just sort of more extreme weather patterns in general have had a lot of negative impacts on sensitive species that we have here, mountain yellow-legged frogs included. And I have to always throw my frog in every episode. Find the Easter egg in every episode.

SPEAKER_04 32:48

Frog, frog, frog, here it is.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

But what I was gonna say is that's not the only contributing factor to why their populations are declining. And my understanding is that there is a couple others, including like habitat degradation and potentially pesticide use that might be impacting them too. Can you talk about pesticides specifically?

SPEAKER_02 33:05

Yeah. There is, you know, one in particular, it's a systemic pesticide. And so what that means is once the plant is sprayed, it has it's been taken up by the plant. And so even, you know, if there wasn't a coating on the outside, if the monarchs were to eat the leaves of a milkweed plant that had been sprayed by these neonicotinoids, it's possible that that could inadvertently kill a monarch butterfly. And so when they're going through these, you know, agricultural areas, or even, you know, if it's say it's like a golf course that had been sprayed with like pesticides or or you know, weed-killing things.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

Pesticides. Pesticides. Those ones weed killers.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

Fertilizers, things like that. It's possible that that can also upset the delicate balance.

SPEAKER_01 33:59

So even if they are otherwise like on healthy milkweed and doing all the things that they're supposed to, and they land for just a second to just drink nectar out of a flower that had inadvertently been sprayed or advertently been sprayed with this systemic pesticide, that could be enough to kill a monarch. Yes. And so it really isn't about protecting specific critical habitat. It's about protecting the entire what they call a corridor of where these animals go, all the food that they're eating along the way, and finding places for them to rest that are safe for them. That's a lot. It is.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

It is a lot. It makes you wonder how anything survives. Like it's so difficult.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

Especially monarch butterflies at this point. I just there's so many factors working against them. Is there anything that is currently being recommended to use instead of pesticides if you're using a garden? I obviously people have pests in their garden, and I know that you can't be blamed for not wanting pests to eat your vegetables or your crops or your flowers or whatever it is that you have growing. What can potentially people do instead of spraying these systemic pesticides or adding them to the soil that could have the same effect but less toxic for animals that we don't want to kill?

SPEAKER_00 35:08

I know there's they recommend so like this is just for weeds, so you know, hand pulling kind of sucks, but I don't know, maybe put on a nice podcast like the Aquarium of the Pacific and go out there and we hang out. We love it. And so kind of just spend some time, make sure you do it early in the morning so it's not too hot, things like that. So hand weeding and then using organic herbicides to try and get the weeds out of there and making a concoction of vinegar, soap, and salt and spraying it on there. You can like clean your counters with that. That's that's like a really good, you know, alternative to different types of really harsh chemicals. But that's one of the things that can help. Just spraying off the leaves gently with water can get aphids off those little they're kind of cute little white guys, but I they're not cute. They do bad. They're just eating aphids there. They're trying to live, but we don't want them.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

Not on those plants, we don't.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

So I'll just like I'll just spray them off the plants and do my best. And then you just have to be, you know, pretty on it.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

So we're maintaining a really nice organic butterfly garden out there.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

We're trying.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

Also, I have seen the monarchs on the the caterpillars on a milkweed plant. They don't care about the aphids at all. They will just use their little antennas to brush them out of the way. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 36:30

It doesn't affect their ability to eat the Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

And honestly, if you're going to a nursery to pick up like a milkweed plant, aphids on a milkweed plant is a good sign because that means that likely they haven't sprayed it with pesticides. So it is healthy, yeah. So maybe maybe a good thing to look out for, actually.

SPEAKER_01 36:49

It's crazy to think that someone would sell milkweed that had been sprayed with a pesticide because to me, the main reason anyone's ever buying milkweed is to encourage monarchs in their backyard. And so then to have had it sprayed with a pesticide or treated with a systemic pesticide, you're like, what was the plot? Look for aphids. That's how we know. We want them. Until they're here, then you want to spray them off with a hose. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

Or you could even take a little toothbrush and like knock them off of the plant. We've had volunteers do that too.

SPEAKER_03 37:16

Nice. I love that. What'd you do today? I knocked aphids off of a plant with a toothbrush. It's a good day. They did important.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

So you said our volunteers also go out and maintain the butterfly garden. What component of both our monarch work on-site and also off-site is run by volunteers or do volunteers contribute to in a meaningful way? And sort of what do they get to do?

SPEAKER_02 37:38

Yeah, our volunteers do everything from we meet every other week uh virtually to discuss all things monarchs. So habitats, biology. We go over, you know, at the end of the year what the counts are looking like. We do education and outreach. We recently went to the City of Long Beach's Monarch Day of Action. That was a lot of fun. There was a planting that happened, and we were out there with members of the Teen Climate Council making seed balls so that people could take those home and create monarch habitats of their own. And yeah, we're we're really excited to be able to be on site and help out in the butterfly and monarch pollinator gardens. And so getting our hands dirty and weeding and really taking pride here on our on-site habitats. We also have do have a couple of off-site gardens as well that are maintained by our volunteers. And so that's been really exciting to create more of that corridor. It's not just here on site. It's yeah, it's really exciting to extend that corridor, have plantings on site, off-site, in our neighborhoods. And so I think it also just brings that connection for all of us.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

I will be walking my dog in my neighborhood in Long Beach, and I've seen monarch way station signs, and they're like, There's native plants here. Don't step on them. Like, please take care of them. And then don't let your dog go to the bathroom on them. And I'm like, all right, Barry, we can't do that. Um it's really cool to see. I I really like that.

SPEAKER_02 39:06

You can certify your own habitat. If you have one, you can certify it as a monarch way station.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah. Does that do anything for this is not an official is like a tax break associated with that? Like, do you get a benefit from certifying your habitat as that, or is it more just this somewhat official designation so that you can say this is what this is?

SPEAKER_02 39:28

I think it's more of an official designation. Like you have to a few different cute sign and things. Yeah, you get a the sign. Pretty sure you have to pay for it though. You can pay for a cute sign. Yeah, we actually have one here on site. Yeah, we do. Yeah, it is a cool sign I've seen.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

It's cool, yeah. I love our pollinator garden. It's nice. I feel like it's a very not very visited part of the aquarium because people don't see it as an animal exhibit in its own right. And so they just see plants and like, okay, there's plants over there. But if you were to go out by where our watershed classroom is and where our watershed area is, there is an entire station that talks about the California watershed. And just behind that, we have quite a robust garden. And if you were to go and enjoy it, it is actually open. The public can access most of it and see most of it. And we also have pollinator plants that are planted around the aquarium as well. And I believe that makes up a large component of our contribution to the Monarch Safe program, which is saving animals from extinction, and we are one of many AZA institutions that are a part of the SAFE. And it sounds like community engagement is a huge component also of what we do through our SAFE. What sort of is your experience working within that SAFE framework? And do you get to kind of talk to people from other zoos and aquariums about monarchs and things like that?

SPEAKER_02 40:43

Yeah. We are actually a part of a program called Party for the Planet with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and a lot of other institutions are really focusing on monarch habitats, and it's been really exciting to see. Whether that is, you know, doing plantings on site or concentrating on educating others to create monarch habitats in their own backyards. And so it's been really awesome. Also, what we get to do a lot of is that community science aspect. So we get to, if there are any monarch sightings, we will post those on community science apps like iNaturalist or Journey North, Monarch Milkweed Mapper, things like that. And so that really helps contribute to the science of monarch butterflies. And it helps to give an idea of, you know, where where are they in their migration journey, uh, what is their population looking like, and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

That's really cool. I like the collaboration between so many different institutions. And I know zoos and aquarias seem like they're mostly focused on individual animals and having animals that live on site and are ambassadors for their species, but also zoos and aquaria do so much for conservation and care so broadly about conserving not just the animals but also the ecosystems in which they live. I was gonna ask, is it primarily the Western monarchs that are covered by that, or is it all species of monarchs or both species of monarchs that we have in North America that are part of the monarch safe?

SPEAKER_02 42:14

Aaron Ross Powell It's all over the place. It's all over the place. All over the place. All over North America. Mexico all the way up to Canada. That's cool. They're the whole range of the monarchs' migration.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Nice. I feel like I asked a ton of questions about monarchs. I feel like I learned a lot about monarchs, and I was wondering if people were listening to this podcast and they wanted to get involved in community science, and especially as it relates to monarchs, what would you recommend?

SPEAKER_02 42:38

Email me. We can include.

unknown 42:44

Email me.

SPEAKER_02 42:47

Especially if you're local to Long Beach. Although you don't need to be, it is, like I said, a virtual program, although we are adding in more of those on-site, like gardening and horticulture components, which has been really exciting for us to be able to gather in person again. The Monarch Monitoring Project was born during the pandemic, and so that that's kind of how we started virtually and we've kept it going that way. But as we grow, more outreach events are happening, more gardening events are happening, so we're gathering in person more often. But if you're, you know, not in California, I encourage you to find plantings that are happening near you, or find your local association of Zune Aquarium Institution and see what programs they have going on.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

There's a lot of ways to get involved. It sounds like monarchs are everywhere. Need help everywhere. That's pretty cool. Well, social media was very interested in monarchs, and so we interested some really good questions. I'll let Madeline lead it up.

SPEAKER_03 43:49

Yeah. There was a lot of questions, and we touched on it a little bit about tropical versus native milkweed. Is it true that tropical is technically bad for the caterpillars? Or can you talk about the differences between

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Those two types. So no plant technically is bad. However, when we talk about the different habitats, tropical milkweeds are going to be good in tropical habitats. So a place like, you know, more Hawaii rather than California. In California, we have, like we said, those narrow leaf milkweed, showy milkweed, woolly milkweed. Those are going to be the species that are best suited for our area. And so the reason that tropical milkweed might not be great for here is because it grows really easily. It's a beautiful plant, has beautiful flowers, and that's why a lot of people like to plant it. However, it doesn't die back over the winter like our native varieties should. And so because of that, it's more likely that those parasites OE are going to live on it. So if people do have tropical, it is best practice to cut those back that November through February or March timeline.

SPEAKER_03 45:03

So you can have it, but you have to be on top of cutting it back. That's interesting. Is it hard to acquire native milkweed?

SPEAKER_02 45:11

Is that why we've found that it's been tricky to start from seed. It's not impossible, but because they kind of rely on those environmental cues, they're some of our volunteers have kind of experimented with like best ways to grow them. Some plants need like a cold shock as if it had gone through a winter period and then a warmer. So some people have experimented with, you know, putting the seeds on a warming mat or putting the seeds in the refrigerator for like a day to see if that jump starts anything. But there are nurseries where you can buy native milkweeds, and those plants can actually be started. So you can get them already started, which is a little easier. It's much easier.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Very cool. I do have to say Don gave me a milkweed, and I got really sad when it died, and then I realized it was supposed to happen. And then it came back and I was like, it's really a moment where I was like, I killed it. And then I realized because it was native, it is meant to go through that seasonal change, and it was normal. So if your milkweed dies and it is a native milkweed to California, it's okay. Give it a couple months. It'll be back. Yeah. But it was very heartbreaking, and then I was like, oh, it's back, it's back.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

It's exactly what it's supposed to be doing. Did it just look like a couple of sticks?

SPEAKER_01 46:27

Yeah, it got really short and then it had no leaves. And then I was like, for sure. And I thought for sure I forgot to water it or something. And I was like, it doesn't need a ton of water. Like it seems like it's doing fine. It's back. So I think it just needed a a couple beats, and I just needed to not worry about it for a lot of people. Trust nature.

SPEAKER_04 46:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

I should have. So it's less about the tropical milkweed actually not being suitable for them, and much more about parasites being present on that plant. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 46:53

The parasites and also encouraging them to get to, like we talked about earlier, to get to their to their overwintering. Keep going, guys. Keep going.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

Trevor Burrus, Jr. That's interesting that they would potentially choose to settle there and just kind of hang out if they had the option. And sometimes maybe animals, if we are introducing things that are variable to their habitat, maybe we don't give them that option because it's really throwing them off a little bit. The next question we have, I think that this person meant chrysalis, but I also understand the confusion. Do you know well, first and foremost, they asked, what are their cocoons made out of? But I would love to talk about the difference between a chrysalis and a cocoon. Do you know the differences?

SPEAKER_02 47:30

Aaron Ross Powell Cocoons are spun. So they're things like moths. Silkworms will do. Silkworms, yeah. So they'll spin their cocoon. Interesting. As opposed to the monarchs which have their chrysalises, those are actually under their skin. Has anyone actually seen a video of what it looks like when they say it's under their skin? It's under their skin. So I feel about that. When when the monarch is ready to go into their chrysalis, it will hang upside down in a J, and then it'll start wiggling its outer skin off. It's very cool to see, actually.

SPEAKER_01 48:08

Does the skin fall or does it get like into?

SPEAKER_02 48:11

No, it it'll start twisting until the skin falls off.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

So you'll see the skin on the ground afterward.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

You should, yes.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

That little stripey. I've never seen a little stripy piece of caterpillar skin on the ground. It makes me wonder if I'm not watching closely enough. So they will then just kind of harden into a chrysalis.

SPEAKER_02 48:32

Yes. Which is made of chitin.

SPEAKER_01 48:34

Woo! Chitin is a structural sugar and is what most crispity bug parts are made out of. That sounds gross. But you don't need the exoskeleton part.

SPEAKER_04 48:44

That's kind of like that's kind of it can be crunchy.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

So it makes sense that that would be what that's made out of. So that exists under the skin. Then they shed their skin off, which is horrifying. And then they turn, they harden, and then they become a green little chrysalis. Yes. And that is what their chrysalis is made out of. Cocoons are separate, and cocoons are made out of things that are either collected from the environment or spun, like so. Interesting. Fascinating.

SPEAKER_03 49:09

We're all learning today. And what causes the green color? This is gross. That is the monarch itself. It's just green in there. So it's not the crystallis are chrysalis that is green, it's the monarch itself is green. Because it wiggled off those stripes.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

No more stripes. No more.

SPEAKER_02 49:31

And you can actually, as the monarch butterfly is ready to emerge from the chrysalis, in the hours before then you'll actually see the colors change inside. So the chrysalis itself is transparent and you can see it starting to get darker, and you can see like the spots underneath. It's very cool to see.

SPEAKER_03 49:51

So the coloration happens within hours of being ready to emerge.

SPEAKER_01 49:56

I feel like it gets a little darker brown. Slightly darker, and then in one day it's just clear, and you're like, there's a butterfly in there.

SPEAKER_00 50:03

And then there's not.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

And then there's not. But it turns out it was clear the whole time. And the green is just the dissolved organism restructuring itself into a butterfly. Okay, so wait.

SPEAKER_03 50:12

So that's what happens? It dissolves itself and then restructures. Is that the process?

SPEAKER_01 50:16

It goes from a goopy little caterpillar with no skin to a butterfly.

SPEAKER_02 50:21

That seems amazing. I know. But if you look at each crystallis too, they all have similar structure to them. Like the there it is structured goop in there. The goop is structured.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

Is it organized chaos? Actually, yeah. Is it important for the chrysalis to s remain oriented in a certain direction? Like does it if you turned it, would that impact its development or would it die?

SPEAKER_02 50:46

Aaron Ross Powell Well, if you turned it, it's likely that the hold fast. Yeah, the little I know that that's not the word, but I'm at the aquarium.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

So you can kill them.

SPEAKER_02 50:56

The piece that hangs that's hanging with the code. I think that that would be off.

SPEAKER_01 51:02

Turned it upside down and I like pinched. So like it was hanging but upside down. I'm actually in California illegal, so I won't. But it in theory, I wonder if developmentally it's important for it to be oriented in a certain way, or if it falls, does it stop developing because it then is sideways? Like I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 51:18

It's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 51:19

I wonder if the formation into the J-shape too is ideal for J-shape is such a funny phrase. I don't know why. But I wonder if it's like attempting to get a certain angle of sun, a certain angle of shade. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: I wonder why they go where they go. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 51:35

Now we're just wondering. I know the wondering podcast.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Why do they do anything? Yeah, why do they do that?

SPEAKER_01 51:42

What are they up to? And who's in there? And where is their brain and what's going on? Who's in charge of this? And I don't understand.

SPEAKER_02 51:50

So when a monarch butterfly emerges from its chrysalis, that's called eclosion, and they hang upside down to expand their dry wings and dry their wings. So the butterfly emerges head first from the bottom of the chrysalis. So that's that may be important.

unknown 52:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:09

That's kind of where their head was when they hung upside down the first time. Exactly. Their head stays in the same zone. That's so weird. Eclosion. That sounds like a cool band name. Explosion. An explosion of butterflies. Eclosion. So another question we had had was at what point does the chrysalis change color? But most technically the chrysalis has never changed color the entire process. They were just green inside the whole time. And then they became a butterfly. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 52:39

Is there a difference between male and female? Or is there a visual difference between male and female sexual dimorphism?

SPEAKER_02 52:46

Yes, there is. And if a but a monarch butterfly opens its wings and you see two black dots on the bottom wings near its thorax, those are going to be males. Males also typically have thinner black lines on the wing patterns, and the females will have those thick black lines.

SPEAKER_03 53:09

Do we know is there any is there any thought of why they are orange and black?

unknown 53:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:15

Any reason? Yeah, so they have scales on their wings. Um and also one, you shouldn't touch the butterflies because it's illegal. But if you do touch their wings, like um it can ruin their flight because those scales are, you know, in a very particular place. But it's how the light reflects off of um their scales. And so they have a hor an orange hue. Yeah. Is that to blend in with so it is apotism?

SPEAKER_01 53:39

Aposematism. Gosh darn me.

SPEAKER_00 53:42

And I know that about frogs too. But not for butterflies. Much like frogs. Much like frogs, they have warning colors. So because they ate the milkweed, they're toxic.

SPEAKER_03 53:53

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

So they harness those toxins, and they it's a warning color for other animals to know that hey, I'm toxic. Don't eat me, or else you're gonna get sick.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Yeah. So you're gonna be real sick. Fascinating. That's so cool. So the milkweed toxin persists all the way into the butterfly stage, and that's what allows them to remain toxic. They're not lying. That bright orange color says, Don't eat me.

SPEAKER_02 54:15

Yeah, does anything prey on them naturally or there are some species of birds that have evolved to be able to eat them.

SPEAKER_00 54:24

Gotta be quick.

SPEAKER_01 54:25

Yeah. I did look up whatever I remember cardin I looked them up. Cardin what was it? Cardinoids? Cardinaloid, but the cardinaloids that are present in them can actually stop essentially like your potassium-sodium ion channels, and so it can cause cardiac arrest and it can kill you. I think you'd have to eat a lot of milkweed or butterflies in order to have that impact. But it's effectively not very good for you. And I imagine for an animal that would normally be eating butterfly-sized things could be fairly fairly detrimental to them.

SPEAKER_03 55:01

But interesting that something's evolved to be able to handle the toxin.

SPEAKER_01 55:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:05

And also that the toxins called cardanyloids, which is my new favorite word for the entire day. Got so many good words this year. Cool. And we talked about it, I think, where people can see Monarchs in SoCal.

SPEAKER_01 55:16

Yeah. Yeah. People want to know where they can see them right here at the aquarium episode.

SPEAKER_00 55:21

We sure hope so.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

Yeah. That's the goal.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

Well, I think that's the majority of the questions. That's about it. Yeah. For both of you, my last question. How would you encourage people to take care of monarchs in their day-to-day lives? Or what is something you want people to know about these animals that they might not already know?

SPEAKER_00 55:40

Well, if you're able to plant native, if you have the capacity, I have an apartment with a balcony, so it's not like I have a yard that I can plant things, but you can always put planters on your balcony. Things like that. Native pollinator species of plants, those are really important, that can feed the monarchs on their way to their migration. If you have a yard and you have the capacity to do the milkweed, that's really cool too. And then, like you said, you'll educate yourself and maybe your family at that time if they want to watch the process and the metamorphosis of a butterfly. That's really cool for kids to see. And yeah, not using pesticides, trying to find different types of organic ways to protect your plants. If we do have a wet winter, all that runoff from the pesticides doesn't just affect the butterflies and all those plants, but it runs off into all of our oceans and everything like that.

SPEAKER_03 56:28

So it's all connected.

SPEAKER_00 56:30

If we can be more responsible with the choices that we make, but also have fun with it. I would love to have a monarch way stations at some point in my life when I own a home. So that's kind of cool. And people can be a part of those programs and then make friends, be a part of your community and do things like that. I think counting butterflies sounds pretty fun too. You can make a game out of that. I don't know. That sounds really awesome.

SPEAKER_02 56:52

Yes, to add on to that, the the community science. If if you're not able, for whatever reason, to create a habitat, I think that there's still plenty of ways that you can contribute and be involved with those community science apps. Yeah. Find your community, get together, educate each other, educate the public. Also, something that just recently came up is how light pollution can affect because of those environmental cues, it can throw off monarch migration. And so something as simple as turning off your lights at night can really help not only, you know, creatures like butterflies, but like sea turtles and other migratory species, birds, things like that. So that's that's another easy way that you can help out a myriad of wildlife in your backyard. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Well, it's good to know that one, taking care of butterflies is all of our responsibility, but also that that doesn't have to be hard, and that can be making small changes that improve sort of our community and also our ecosystem and allow for these animals to do the things that they're supposed to be doing. Thank you both for being on and allowing me to grill you about monarch butterflies. I feel like I got really intense all of a sudden. I was like, tell me everything about a Christmas. But it's a really good program, and I'm really happy that we get to be part of a program that does so much for the species, and also that there are so many people across this country and honestly across the world that are doing what they can to help monarchs.

SPEAKER_03 58:19

So hopefully we get to see more butterflies soon. That makes my day every time I get to see a butterfly. So that's the ultimate prize. More butterflies.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

More butterflies.

SPEAKER_03 58:28

Yay. Thank you guys so much. We appreciate it. That was so much fun.

SPEAKER_01 58:37

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SPEAKER_03 58:44

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SPEAKER_01 58:50

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SPEAKER_03 59:08

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