- Introduction
- Tagging Butterflies
- Learning from Tagging
- How to Tag
- Download
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Learning From Tagging
Monarch tagging by volunteers was the main way scientists confirmed, only in the past 30 years, that monarchs migrate to Mexico. (The practice of tagging monarchs dates to the 1930s). Tagging has strengthened researchers’ belief that fall migration is triggered by shortening day length. “We have learned that the timing and pace of migration is consistent with the hypothesis that the butterflies are responding to, or in some way are guided by, celestial changes in the fall sky,” says Monarch Watch director Chip Taylor. Perhaps one day, volunteers will help unravel one of the most profound monarch mysteries: How do individuals in the last generation, who have never been to the wintering grounds in Mexico, find their way?
Besides providing essential data, tagging has fulfilled another of Monarch Watch’s objectives: promoting science education, particularly in primary and secondary schools, and enlightening the public about monarch conservation. In 2004, 100,000 people in the United States and Canada, mostly schoolchildren, tagged more than 76,000 monarchs. Here in North Carolina, the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences has distributed tagging kits to more than 130 schools throughout the state and trained teachers on how to use them properly.
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