President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Tuesday declaring that all 2026 monarch butterfly tracking tags made available by conservation organization Monarch Watchers must include an image of the president’s face. The newly-designed tags provided by the White House feature Trump with a surrounding crown motif and the words Make Migration Legal Again in bright red ink.
“There’s only one monarch in the United States of America,” press secretary Caroline Levy stated at a press briefing. She added that the small stickers, which are adhered to the wings of migrating monarch butterflies each fall, will be known as “Trump Tags” going forward.
Hundreds of thousands of the tiny, round labels are sold annually to community scientists who assist researchers in tracking the migration of the Americas’ favorite insect as it moves over multiple generations from Mexico through the U.S. to Canada and back.
Monarch Watchers’ monarch butterflies tags will now be known as “Trump tags.” –Photo by Misha Khan
Volunteers typically purchase the tags in late summer for $15 per sheet of 25 tags. They capture the migrating monarchs in butterfly nets, gently adhere the stickers to a specific cell on their wings, record the date, time, place and sex of the butterfly, then release the creatures to continue their migration. The process usually takes a minute or less, and the data gathered is sent to Monarch Watchers to be used in research.
2026 Monarch Watchers “Trump tags” will be redesigned to include the president’s face.–Photo by Misha Khan
Levy explained that the Trump tags would not only reinforce the status of the president as “the only reigning monarch” in the United States, they would also allow border patrol agents and immigration officials to determine which butterflies had been tagged in the United States, and were therefore, “legal.”
Butterflies without a Trump tag entering the United States next spring will be apprehended, said Levy, reiterating the administration’s official policy. “Any individual, a foreign national, who illegally enters the United States of America, is by definition a criminal,” Levy said.
When a reporter asked if Trump might consider developing autographed and/or gold-dusted Trump tags to be sold at a premium, Levy responded, “Nothing is off the table.”
She added that the administration is considering doubling the price of the tags, with the added revenues going to the recently created Make Immigrants Legal Again Foundation.
Skip Naylor, who founded Monarch Watchers more than 30 years ago at the University of Kansas, responded to the executive order with a mixture of disbelief and pragmatism.
“This is preposterous,” said the 86-year-old entomologist. “I guess we’ll have to stop the presses and rework this year’s tags,” he added, noting that the specialized stickers had been recently sent to the printer for production so as to be ready in time for tagging season.
Longtime volunteers for Monarch Watchers were less accepting.
“Given his penchant for orange, I’m not surprised,” said Carol Park, who has been tagging the butterflies for more than a decade. Park added that she would rather use tags from previous seasons than one with Trump’s face on it. “I’ve got lots of extras from years’ past.”
“Politicizing our most beloved insect by pasting his face on a tool created for science and wildlife conservation–causes Trump has shown himself to completely disregard–is the height of hypocrisy,” said Samuel White, director of the Insect Protection Society, a nonprofit organization based in Portland, Oregon, devoted to invertebrate conservation.
Protesters at the March 28th No Kings rallies wore monarch butterfly t-shirts. –Photo by Misha Khan
Black suggested the timing of the executive order came in response to last weekend’s No Kings protests, which drew an estimated eight million protesters at more than 3,000 events across the country.
Levy dismissed the protests as “Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions” and said the only people who care “are the reporters who are paid to cover them.”
Labeled one of the largest protests in American history, the rallies challenged current immigration policies, ICE interventions, high grocery and gasoline prices, the war in Iran, and the administration’s disregard for the U.S. constitution. Some protesters wore monarch butterfly t-shirts and carried signs reading “No Kings! Only Monarchs!” “We love our immigrant neighbors!” and “The Only Orange Monarch I Want” with depictions of monarch butterflies.
TOP PHOTO: A Trump tag on a monarch butterfly. –Photo by Misha Khan
Check out my books!
Related articles
- Big Bend and National Butterfly Center to DHS: Don’t mess with our nature preserves
- Migrating monarch butterflies seized at Texas border as part of Trump’s deportation policy
- National Butterfly Center shows resilience in face of border wall, other challenges
- Border Wall at National Butterfly Center violates property rights and worse
- McAllen becomes second NWF Monarch Butterfly Champion City
- South Texas a great base for sojourn of bees, butterflies and birds
- Monarch Champion status not “just talk,” will change how San Antonio manages land
- What will happen to pollinator advocacy under President Trump?
- Endangered Species Act: wrong tool for monarch butterfly conservation?
Like what you’re reading? Don’t miss a single article from the Texas Butterfly Ranch. Sign up for our email newsletter, like us on Facebook, or follow us on on Instagram.
/fusion_text]
Ok, you got me! April Fools!
Me too, got really angry at first, then realized what day it is…But wouldn’t surprise me as he wants his dumb face on everything!
Keep your Trump derangement to yourself, your ramblings are not welcomed here.
It is so close to the current reality in political leadership that I almost believed it. Great satire.
You guys are just ridiculous and this makes me want to have nothing at all to
do with your organization , I guess you constantly watch MSM who only lies!! Give me a break!!!
All the monarchs were killed in my area due to the last administrations “fight the bite “program to kill mosquitoes with malathion in it, which gave me Lyme and morgellons and killed any butterfly that approached my yard!
Agree!
Thank you for injecting science. We love Monarchs and let’s agree that’s why we’re here. Social media hysteria over loving/hating somebody is why I quit Facebook; let’s not have it here.
Of course a mindless deranged person would believe it. You have no place here.
It has been nice to take part in a non-politicized organization dealing with nature. I know it was an April Fools tongue in cheek but why alienate a number of your followers this way?
The loved butterflies don’t need to be used to fuel fire against one another.
Can we have one place where politics are not a part of the organization?
AGREE!!!
Thank you, Tammy. Agree with you. Plenty of Facebook space for this kind of behavior.
Agreed. This Trump derangement is sickening.
Agree!
Very clever!
Ha! Ha! Ha! April Fool’s! 🤣😂🤣
Thanks for the smile!
There’s plenty to accomplish with Monarch science without injecting politics. We love Monarchs and want to do well by them. I see no reason to attempt making certain people feel justified about their anger while causing others to leave this site from being tired of outrage farming available on social media sites.
The tags should be moved a little to serve as RUMP TAGS ! They would also be easier to observe longer as they grow smaller with greater distance.
Question: What do you care more about?
Your anti-Trump politics or mobilizing EVERYONE to protect monarchs?
Since you posted this polarizing April Fool’s post, I wonder which is your priority.
Believe it or not, people who voted for Trump CAN and DO love monarchs. Many of us are Christians who take God’s stewardship of His creation to heart and put it into action. As the current saying goes, two things can be true at the same time.
Such polarizing postings (yes, even as a joke since the political satire is clear) propagate mistrust and division, which is the same phenomenan that keeps occuring in Congress – even when Republicans and Democrates actually do agree on a lot. Let’s AGREE on advocacy for monarchs and call it a day!
I just told my husband this morning that I didn’t think people did April Fool’s jokes anymore. I started reading this and could not believe what I was reading until I realized – YES! they still do April Fool’s jokes. You got me!!
I agree that anyone regardless of political affiliation that support monarch butterflies are important / vital to the project . Though it is true that everyday the current administration waves all environmental rules whenever they can. Hurting monarch conservation. Of course they aren’t the only administration with damaging environmental policies just the most egregious recently.