Many people know a little bit about monarch butterflies, like that they pass through a fascinating life cycle from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly and complete miraculous migrations every year to avoid winter weather.

With so many people familiar with monarchs and interested in them, monarchs have become a poster species for citizen science. Citizen science allows everyday people who are interested in monarchs but who aren’t biologists to contribute to monarch butterfly research.

Organizations like Journey North, Monarch Watch, and the Southwest Monarch Study work with citizen scientists to study monarch migrations. Each of these groups ask for butterfly observation data from everyday people who keep their eyes peeled for monarchs during migration times. Citizens report when they start seeing monarchs in their area, so the organizations are able to track and map out the progression of monarch migration each spring and fall when monarchs return to the US and fly south for the winter, respectively.

Citizen science groups also have monarch tagging programs that allow the groups to study the migration routes of individual monarchs, not just the population as a whole. During migration times, citizen monarch taggers catch butterflies and then place tiny stickers on their wings before releasing them.

These stickers include individual ID numbers and contact information for the citizen science group. After a tagged monarch has been released, another person needs to see the monarch again and report the tag number to the citizen science organization. Then, the organization can draw out the migration route the butterfly took.

I got involved in monarch citizen science while researching monarchs in late summer and early fall of 2019. That time was right when the monarchs would begin heading south for the winter.

I did my work at Dinosaur National Monument in Utah and Colorado, an interesting area because it is around the supposed boundary between the western population of monarchs, who spend their winters in California, and the eastern monarchs, who fly to forests in Mexico for the winter. At Dinosaur, we needed to tag the area’s monarchs to learn where they flew for the winter.

To tag monarchs, I tramped around meadows and trails in search of monarchs, wielding my trusty butterfly net. When I spotted a monarch flying about and then landing on a flower, I would creep up on it and take a quick swipe to (hopefully) catch it in my net.

I’d carefully pinch its wings closed with two fingers, remove it from the net and record some data about the condition of the monarch. Although many people think monarchs will be hurt in this process, if they are held correctly they are not impacted at all.

Finally, I would press a tiny round sticker – the tag –  on to the monarchs’ wing and then release it. My tags were provided by the Southwest Monarch Study, so I sent all my data to them and hoped that they would receive an email about my tagged butterflies being seen again.

Over the course of about 12 weeks of my work, my team and I caught, tagged, and released 151 monarchs. Every time we released a tagged monarch, we crossed our fingers that someone somewhere would see this monarch again and report its tag number to the Southwest Monarch Study.

As of May 2020, I sadly still haven’t heard news of any of my tags being recovered elsewhere I’m still waiting for news and hoping that citizen science will solve the mystery of where monarchs from Dinosaur National Monument migrate to for the winter months.