Topline:
Monarch butterflies have been declining in Southern California for decades, but a conservation nonprofit is trying to understand that by pulling together hundreds of volunteers every year to tally them.
What’s happening? The Xerces Society is running its last period in 2025 for the annual Western Monarch Count. That helps researchers understand population trends.
Why now? At this time of year, the count tells researchers about how many of these pollinators are leaving our area and their mortality rates. They specifically track a type called an overwintering monarch, which are beefier and live longer than other monarchs. They come here to escape the cold.
How you can get involved: You can volunteer now to help with next year’s count. You’ll get assigned a site and use binoculars to search for them. Or you can jump in right way by taking photos.
Read on … to learn how to share photos of monarchs you find and their nectar spots.
If you’re out in nature this weekend, you might see people combing spots in search of one thing: monarch butterflies.
The community science initiative, known as the Western Monarch Count, is led by the Xerces Society, a conservation nonprofit that looks for the insects annually. This is the last count for the year, and it runs through Jan. 11.
The count is run mostly by hundreds of volunteers and partners of the Xerces Society across the state.
Why the count matters
Across California, monarch butterflies have been in steep decline in recent decades. The count is one of the ways the Xerces Society is trying to understand what’s happening and how we can help them recover.
The count looks specifically at the habits of a specific type of monarch known as overwintering monarchs, which travel hundreds of miles to our coast to escape harsh winters. They have special fat reserves in their tiny bodies, which make them beefier than breeding ones, says Sara Cuadra-Vargas, a conservation biologist at the Xerces Society.
“ You can think of it … like if your great-great-great-great-grandfather was a superhuman that lived extra long and was extra large,” Cuadra-Vargas said.
The count happens over three periods, starting in October. This period is called the late-season count, which can show biologists how many monarchs are moving away from our sites and what mortality is looking like.
How you can help monarchs
They’re set for volunteers for this count, but you can volunteer for next year’s count by signing up to volunteer here. They require at least 15 hours of commitment — you’ll get set up with training.
Volunteers typically are assigned a site for the season and go out early in the morning when it’s too cold for monarchs to move. You’ll scan for the orange butterflies with binoculars and document things like habit quality and disturbances.
Cuadra-Vargas says our region has dozens of confirmed and potential overwintering sites, but the bulk of monarchs are seen in the central coast. In training, she tempers expectations.
“ We do still get overwintering monarchs here in Southern California, in Los Angeles and Orange counties,” she said, “but it’s a bit of more presence-absence that we’re looking for.”
That means you also may report where monarchs aren’t anymore, which is an important piece of data for biologists.
If you want to help out now, though, there’s still a few ways to do it:
