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Butterfly Garden

Tagging Monarchs

15 years ago

Has anyone tagged Monarch butterflies through the Monarch Watch program? I am wondering what the success rate is. I tagged 25 Monarchs last year and did not receive notification that any of them were recovered. I tried checking the website also, and it looks like the information online is a little old. I'd love to hear about anyone's experience with the tagging program.

Thanks,

Lisa

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Comments (3)

spiritwild
15 years ago
We helped tag this year.
I think around my neck of the woods only 1 or 2 out of 400 or so were recovered last year.

And everything seems to be a bit dated on their site.
Their way station list wasn't updated for what seemed like years.
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linda_centralokzn6
15 years ago
Hi Lisa,

I have tagged for several years, and only 3 of my tags have been found. It is pretty much luck of the draw.

Timing is critical. It is best to tag during your peak migration, when there are several migrating in your area. They are the ones most likely to make it to Mexico. The tags are picked up by the Mexicans in the Monarch preserves. Your tagged Monarchs will need to have died, and be laying on the forest floor to be picked up. The Monarch Watch crew will go down around February or March, and try to buy all of the tags that they can afford from the people who have them. The tags may take several years to be found, or may be found the next spring. It is rare to hear of tagged Monarchs in the spring being found in Texas. The Monarch Watch does not have any Federal grants to buy tags. It is all done by donations from people like us. They don't have the resources to e-mail each of us of our tags being found. They will post the numbers on their website. They tried doing a searchable database a few years ago, but ran out of funds.

I don't know what the percentage of tagged Monarchs found are. It is awesome to have a tagged Monarch found, and proof that yours have found their way to Mexico.

Hope that helps.

Here's the link to tagged recoveries from March 2008, if you had tagged yours last fall. Is this where you looked?

Here is a link that might be useful: Tagged recoveries March 2008
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Very easy to do. Click on link below and fill in whatever blanks you want. For instance you can just fill in the state (I used WI) and found that they have 196 recoveries over the years. I filled this info under Tagger. Now if I enter WI under Recoveries, I get this info: 56 were recovered. That means that 56 were recovered in the state of Wisconsin over the years. You can fill in more of the blanks to clarify whatever information you want. For instance if I enter my first and last name as tagger, I receive 7 recoveries. The information for 2007 season is not entered yet. If you do not enter any information in and do a search, it will take awhile but list 11230 recoveries. Hope that helps you out! Here is a link that might be useful: Tag Recovery Search Engine
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I'd love to tag this year, if the Monarchs arrive in August like they did last year, Linda. I think it's probably easiest to tag after they eclose, but when the wings have dried out some, is that right? I had about 100 last year, and if I could tag even half of them, it would be a great experience. Ms Minnamouse - I can certainly understand how you feel about spending the money. However, Monarch Watch is a non-profit organization, and the $ goes to replenish the cost of producing the tags, mailing them out, the information we fill out online for each tagged butterfly, etc. They really don't make any money on it. In fact, last year's report was late this year because they simply didn't have the funds necessary to collect all the information to produce it. The data is important if they are to be able to ascertain the population rise and fall from year to year and the reasons for it. There is a lot more data that I can't relate to you right now ('cause I don't remember), but it is a very important project. Susan
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You still have pipevines, Sandy? Incredible. I haven't seen one in ages now. I've seen the Tigers, but that's all. The Cloudless Sulphurs and Monarchs have taken over the garden practically, as well as tons of skippers, hairstreaks, and the Texas Crescents. Yesterday I saw a very small Painted Lady for the first time this summer. She did not want to be photographed, but I finally got her. The Gulf Frits are STILL laying eggs. Guess they'll be here until.....whenever. Thank you so much for the lovely plants! I am so excited about the pussy willow and the tulip tree! I have a little Queen in the garden (a female) that loves to nectar on the aster I have (the big one). None of the Monarchs go near it, but the little Queen is all over it. Kind of odd to me. I went to the backyard and saw several Monarchs heading south, so they are on their way. I need to go out in the evening to see if I have any "roosters"! Heehee. The Monarchs are nectaring avidly though, from sunup to sunset. They stay in the garden nectaring longer than the other butterflies. Guess they need their "energy drink" before they head on south! I've never had so many red-banded hairstreaks either. But, you know I haven't seen but one Bordered Patch all summer. Last year I had tons of them. Just goes to show you that you don't see some of the butterfly species every year. Haven't seen the Orange Sulphurs that I saw last year either. Just the Cloudless, the little yellows, dainties, Sleepy Oranges, and the one dogface. I have lots of little blues, too. They prefer to stay in the shady back yard, along with the Gorgones. I have lots of little aster-type weeds that they like to nectar on, plus more of the blue mist flower. It grows and blooms just fine in shade. That's what the Virginia Ctenuche moth was nectaring on the other day. They sure are pretty little moths. At first I thought it was some kind of wasp, but when it landed it was obvious what it was. I found some eggs on my datura, but don't know yet if they are the pink-spotted hawkmoths or the manducas yet. I haven't seen any manducas at all, but there were two pink-spotted hawkmoths in the garden on Tuesday morning. They were so much fun to watch and I enjoyed them thoroughly. Sandy what was the plant in the small pot (not the aster), but the other one? I've forgotten. My memory is not good anymore - lol! Congratulations on your butterflies! It's been a truly wonderful butterfly year for us, huh? Susan
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lisa_in_pa
Original Author
15 years ago
Thanks for the information-that helps. I finished tagging another 25 today (I began last week). I am seeing a lot of monarchs moving through a large meadow at work. It is interesting to watch them fly from the north end of the meadow to the southern end, stopping to nectar along the way on goldenrod and boneset. Their activity seems to peak between 1p-3p from what I have observed. I observed 6 monarchs on one boneset plant today, and missed every one of them with the net. Should have put the net down and taken a picture instead! The more I learn about their migration, the more amazing it seems.

I also caught what I think was a Viceroy by mistake. When I got this butterfly out of the net, I thought "What a tiny Monarch!". I released it without tagging it because I wasn't sure which species it was. A look at my field guide later confirmed that it was probably a Viceroy. Will have to take the guide with me next time.

Lisa
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