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Tracking a Trip

Monarch butterflies make a long trek with some help from kids.

April 1, 2017
By Judy Dick
Joel Sartore/National Geographic Creative/Getty Images

Each spring, millions of monarch butterflies set out on an amazing journey. They wing their way northward from central Mexico toward the U.S. and Canada.

Juniors Bildarchiv GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo

Kids now have a way to help these monarchs. Through an online program called Journey North, students in Mexico, the U.S., and Canada learn about the migration and help track the butterflies. They report monarch sightings on the Journey North website. The data that kids collect help scientists learn about these insects and how to protect them.

Photo Courtesy of Families

José Adán (left) and a friend in the reserve

José Adán Martínez Carrillo is a sixth-grader from the Mexican village of Sierra Chinchua. He takes part in the project. That village is in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, a protected area where many monarchs gather during the winter. They cluster on the fir trees there. José Adán is learning to be a tour guide in the reserve. “The monarchs spend this time in our forests waiting . . . to go back to the north again,” he explains.

Photo Courtesy of Families

Mischa (center) with two classmates

Kids in the southern U.S. start seeing the butterflies in March. Texas, which is called a funnel for the migration, gets the first monarchs. Mischa, a sixth- grader from Austin, Texas, recalls that last year, “even through a storm, they made it to the U.S. It was raining really hard . . . and a lot of their wings were . . . really torn up.” That storm, in fact, was one reason the monarch population declined last year. 

Sean Duan/Flickr/Getty Images

Monarch caterpillars on milkweed 

Most of the monarchs continue north after Texas. As they migrate, they lay their eggs on a plant called milkweed. Monarch caterpillars hatch and eat its leaves. About a month later, the new generation of monarchs continues the migration. 

Sadly, the milkweed they depend on is disappearing. Some farmers use pesticides to protect their crops, and those chemicals can also kill milkweed. That’s why some students plant milkweed as part of the Journey North project. 

Thomas Kitchin & Victoria Hurst/leesonphoto

A monarch weathers a storm in Canada

The migration lasts through June, with some butterflies reaching as far north as Canada. At the end of the summer, the fall migration to Mexico begins. Some monarchs might fly as many as 3,000 miles to make it back! Bárbara Reyes Hurtado, a fifth-grader from the Mexican village of El Rosario, can’t wait to see them. “I find it incredible that they . . . come to the same areas of our forest,” each year, she says.

1. Most of the migrating monarchs pass through which U.S. state? Why do you think that is?

2. If you lived in Oklahoma (OK), which generation of monarchs would you be likely to see? How about if you live in New York (NY)?  

3. Based on what you have read, what problems might affect monarch migration? How? 

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