Didn’t get enough of Monarch butterflies at our Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Festival last month? Well here’s your chance to learn even more about the hemisphere’s favorite insect.

Dr. Karen Oberhauser, one of the top Monarch butterfly experts in the world and founder of Monarch Joint Venture, will share the state-of-the-union of North American Monarchs at a Celebrating Monarchs event next Tuesday, November 7, at the San Antonio Zoo.

The presentation should be an interesting one, given this year’s odd, mega-late migration. Monarch butterflies continue to gather in tardy, record numbers along the Atlantic coast while simultaneously arriving en masse at their roosting sites in Michoacán. We’ve never seen anything quite like it. Scientists are concerned that the long, drawn out journey south will burn up the Monarchs’ stored fats, possibly jeopardizing their ability to make it through the winter and start the cycle again in spring.

Oberhauser is well-known for spearheading Monarchs in the Classroom, an initiative she launched in 1992 at the University of Minnesota Monarch Lab, and as the co-chair of Monarch Joint Venture (MJV).  With more than 65 organizations under its umbrella, the MJV functions much like a United Way for Monarch butterfly oriented nonprofits and NGOs, lending credibility and sometimes funding to research, conservation and education of Monarchs and their migration. Grants are

Biologist David Berman noticed this female, XSC 637, released at our Festival on Oct. 22 laying eggs at the Nueva St. pollinator garden along the San Antonio River Oct. 30. Photo by David Berman

awarded through a collaborative process overseen by a steering committee and board made up of academics, citizen scientists and government and agency representatives.

Oberhauser’s Monarchs in the Classroom program came about after she supplied surplus caterpillars from her research at the University of Minnesota to her daughter’s elementary school classroom. Once she saw the positive reaction by children and teachers to the critters at school, a pilot program evolved to use Monarch butterflies to teach science.

That program became a flagship, the first of dozens to result from Oberhauser’s penchant for collaboration and public-private partnerships. In 2008, Oberhauser and other Monarch conservation organizations joined forces with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the University of Minnesota to form MJV.

Among the  MJV partners: our good friends at Journey North and Monarch Watch;  the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project, which monitors milkweed patches across the country for Monarchs in all their stages and reports the data;

the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary Foundation, which focuses on conservation and education efforts in Mexico; and Monarch Lab, a University of Minnesota-based research effort focused on the iconic migrant.
Oberhauser’s talk, which will take place at a reception and dinner called Celebrating Monarchs, will kick off the annual MJV conference. The two-day meeting takes place at the downtown University of Texas campus November 8 and 9, but is closed to the public.

Oberhauser’s first trip to the roosting sites in Mexico occurred in 1992. By 1997, she led her first crew of graduate students on a tour to Michoacán. That was the year the Monarch butterfly population peaked at almost a billion butterflies, occupying 18 hectares of forest–almost 45 acres. Last year, the migrating Monarch population numbered only 146 million, occupying less than three hectares–about seven acres.

Monarch butterfly population numbers. Graphic via Journey North

“I’ve seen that whole decline,” Oberhauser said in an interview earlier this year. “I’ve seen it up here in the summer and down there in the winter,” That perspective drives her today.

A silent auction, dinner, and the chance to visit the Zoo’s butterfly house will also be on the program with Oberhauser’s talk, 6:30 – 8:30, Tuesday, November 7. Tickets available here.
See you there.

Did you attend our Festival in October? Please take our survey! GRACIAS!

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