Monarch Butterflies: Their Epic Migration & Hope for a Species in Decline
- Date: 18 March 2025
Each year, millions of migratory eastern monarch butterflies embark on a breathtaking 3,000-mile migration from North America to the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Mexico, where they hibernate in the towering Oyamel fir forests. But this iconic species is in trouble. WWF’s research conducted with conservation partners since the early 2000s shows that the eastern monarch population has been trending downward for years.
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While the latest report released by WWF and the Government of Mexico found that the population nearly doubled during the 2024-2025 winter, this latest finding is still far below the long-term average.
In this episode of Nature Breaking, host Seth Larson speaks with Court Whelan, Chief Sustainability Officer at Natural Habitat Adventures, about the wonders of monarch’s migration, the threats they face, and the conservation efforts bringing hope for their future. Discover how you can help protect these incredible pollinators, from planting native milkweed to utilizing your own personal “superpower” to advance conservation efforts. Join us for an inspiring conversation that highlights why monarchs are worth saving and what we can all do to ensure their survival.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Seth Larson: Welcome to Nature Breaking a World Wildlife Fund podcast, focused on the news and trends affecting our natural world and the people and species who call it home. I'm Seth Larson, and today we'll be talking about monarch butterflies. You know, each year migratory eastern monarch butterflies make a pilgrimage from the US and Canada to Mexico where they hibernate for the winter. WWF then partners with the Government of Mexico and local communities at the country's Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve to monitor butterfly populations.
We do so by measuring the total area of forest occupied by hibernating monarchs. The analysis conducted this winter found that migratory eastern monarchs occupied 4.42 acres of forest, nearly double the 2.22 acres that they occupied during the previous winter. That's good news but the eastern monarch population has been trending downward for years, and this latest finding is still far below the long-term average.
So today I'll be joined by Court Whelan, chief Sustainability Officer for Natural Habitat Adventures or Nat Hab for short. Nat Hab is a travel company that partners with WWF to help travelers learn about conservation through exploration. They lead trips to explore nature all over the world, but most relevant for today, Court leads Nat Hab's annual expedition to the monarch butterflies over wintering grounds in Mexico. So, he'll talk to us about that experience as well as his reaction to the latest monarch report, and he'll tell us why it's so important to conserve this unique species. As always, please take a moment to like this episode and subscribe to our feed wherever you're enjoying this podcast.
And now here's my conversation with Court.
Okay Court Whelan. Welcome to Nature Breaking.
Court Whelan: Pleasure to be here, Seth.
Seth Larson: So, before we jump into today's topic, can you tell our listeners a little about yourself and what inspired your interest in nature and what ultimately led you to your career at Nat Hab?
Court Whelan: My interest in nature, like a lot of folks began pretty early on. I would like to say or think that nature is kind of in my DNA, but frankly that's not real special. Like I think natures in all of our DNA, and I think that's a big part of my mission and my why and my what, what do I do? I take people out into nature and get them immersed in the outdoors.
And so, I think I've always loved being outside. But it didn't really start with any sort of grand family vacations or any sort of monumental early upbringing, you know, making bushcraft fires and anything like that. It was going to city parks and being in my little neighborhood outdoors area. And it really solidified this fondness for nature and indeed the out-of-doors. But if your kind of fast forward, you know, decades at that point of just kind of, you know, loving being outside. I think the real pivotal moment was when I was in college at University of Florida and I decided to, on a whim, take a kind of a bugs 101 class in, you know, entomology intro to entomology. And I fell in love with it. I learned how the sociality of termites and honeybees work and all the cool things that happen in the insect world that most people don't know about. And so, I was just enamored with this sense of learning and wonder and awe from a very get go. And I found that insects more or less, they're either eaten by or eat everything else. And so, they have this unique position in what we call the trophic cascade or trophic pyramid, where I got to learn all about nature and everything I ever wanted to learn about mammals, about plants, all by studying insects, studying entomology. And then the real pivotal moment beyond that was having the opportunity with the University of Florida and Florida Museum of Natural History to join slash kind of intern and guide a group to see the monarch butterfly migration in Mexico.
And this was now some 22, 23 years ago. And that was the real big epiphany moment that you can teach people about nature while learning about nature, while being in the sense of awe and wonder, while being outside and guiding biological type eco tours, something we now really refer to as conservation travel.
So, it really started with this love of being outside, love of nature, progressed through many, many years and the big moments where really kind of finding my niche and finding that area that gave me even more wonder and more awe. And I owe it a lot to the monarch butterfly and its extraordinary migration and the travel aspect that goes along with it. You know, of course.
Seth Larson: They are travelers for sure.
Yeah. Yeah, no, I love hearing that and I've never had a chance to go to the monarch reserve myself. I definitely want to take that trip one of these years, but every time I learn more about monarchs and the unique trip that they do take every year, it just feeds my interest and my curiosity. And I'd love for you to just talk a little more about that. The eastern migratory monarchs, they do spend their winters in Mexico, but they have this amazing annual tradition of going on this grand journey, which crosses generations. And I'd love it if you could tell our listeners a little bit about that annual migration they go on, and just how amazing it is.
Court Whelan: That's another thing that I absolutely love about the monarch butterfly is that it's on the one hand one of the most familiar insects, certainly the most well-known butterfly in the Americas. That's documented. But so known, so understood, yet there's this whole dimension, half of its life or half of its generational yearly lifecycle that yes, we do know a lot about and we're increasing that knowledge. But there's still so much wonderment, still so much unknown, and it's that, indeed migratory phase. So, I can kind of give you a little snapshot of a year in the life of a monarch.
Seth Larson: Yeah, please do.
Court Whelan: The fascinating thing is, was we're going, we're talking about like three to five generations in this annual cycle, yet it's the same butterfly, the same individual that makes the vast, vast majority of that migration.
So, let's, let's start the year in late summer, early fall. Now this is going to differ based on latitude. You know, a butterfly in Maine is going to start its migratory phase a little bit earlier than one in the southeast or in Texas, somewhere in the middle for those in Maryland and Kansas, et cetera. So just know that there's a little bit of wiggle room for error and exact dates, but nevertheless, let's just, for the sake of it, let's just say August. You know, the August monarch butterfly starts as an egg and then a larva, and then a pupa, and then the adult butterfly. Very often it is roughly around that time of year that the adult butterfly gets these cues from the environment. It's decreasing day length, its lowering temperatures, there's their host plants. Their milkweeds start to senesce and die, and they cue in on the angle of the sun, believe it or not. When that sun angle gets below a certain degree level above the horizon at noon, yes, believe it or not, it's that specific, they turn on these migratory genes more or less, which turns off reproduction. They're no longer mating in reproductive mode, and they're in this kind of diapause and they get these cues and then they begin to fly, and they begin to navigate using the same sun, using various other cues down toward Mexico. That butterfly in general will make a 2,000-to-3,000-mile journey, all the same individuals. Going across the Great Plains, going through Texas, going through Northern and even Central Mexico, tanking up on nectar along the way. That's what they need.
Seth Larson: I hope they take a few rest breaks.
Court Whelan: They do take a few rest breaks. We know of a few spots, routinely that they will go overnight, you know, they'll take refuge from storms and all that.
But then usually around the day of the dead, so like November 1st and 2nd we start to see the monarchs arrive in their winter home, which is Central Mexico and the High Sierras, the Sierra Madres. And this is, this is indeed high elevation. We're at like 10 and 11,000 feet. And then that butterfly roost on these towering Oyamel fir trees for the next four and a half months until about the middle of March. During that time, they're in this quasi hibernation. They are actually still quite active and anybody that goes to see the butterflies down there will note that they can be very, very active, especially on warm, sunny days. But they are kind of hibernating. They found this little place that allows 'me to save energy, keep those fat reserves that they built up on their southward journey as they drink that nectar and turn them, turn those sugars and carbohydrates into fat storage. And they're just kind of hanging out down there. They're seeking protection. They're trying to be relatively quiescent; they're trying to be pretty still. But nevertheless, like I said, it tends to turn into a bit of a monarch snow globe at times as the weather warms. So then we now make it to kind of the springtime in that part of Mexico, like mid-March, and they get the reverse cues from the environment, the days are lengthening, the temperature is warming the sun is higher from the angle, you know, in the Northern Hemisphere. Then they begin to migrate. This is the same individual the whole time. Sometimes people think that they're breeding down there, or reproducing rather, you know, laying eggs. They're not really doing that.
Towards the latter part of the season, they will begin to mate. A lot of dating happens on that northward journey and then the same butterfly that made that 3000-mile journey south is going to return some 500 to 1,000 miles back north until they encounter milkweed, which is usually in and around the Gulf States and around southern Texas where milkweed begins to appear. That's one of the big reasons for the migration in the first place, is the US, Texas, and north has a ton more milkweed than Mexico. So, then we enter more or less like springtime, summertime part of the migration. They do begin to reproduce. They breed; they lay eggs. And one really interesting thing is that their lifespan is quite different between those generations. So, we just talked about this one that lives, gosh, like eight, nine months. The ones that are termed the summertime population. Will really only live a couple months, you know, one month as an immature, one month as an adult, and they're essentially going to leapfrog their way generation to generation, repopulating the rest of North America, making it all the way to Southern Canada. Essentially, they're going to make it all the way to where the extent of milkweed is, and those are the monarchs that people have come to know so well in their backyards. But then once again, as the summer turns into fall, that migratory generation picks back up, sometimes referred to as this super generation and they do it all over again. So, one, one big takeaway from all this, which is maybe one of the most mind-blowing parts of it all is it is very often the great or great grandchildren of the previous generation that migrate the following year. So, there's no learning, there's no following. It's all this genetic imprinting that happens and they do it each and every time without fail.
Seth Larson: Yeah, because when you're talking about that leapfrogging that happens, in those sort of late spring, early summer months, the way that works, as I think, as I've come to understand it before is the butterflies will stop on a milkweed plant somewhere along their migration route. They'll, they'll lay eggs, they'll, they'll die, right? And then the generation that comes out of those eggs will carry on the journey northward. And that happens several times over on that sort of leapfrogging part of the journey before then you talked about in August, that super generation comes about and starts this whole process again.
Court Whelan: That's exactly right, and we still don't have all the answers to all the questions. As we know, some butterflies will remain in the immediate area of their first egg laying, for instance, like that next generation doesn't automatically go all the way up to Ohio and the next generation doesn't automatically go to Maine. We know some do that, we know some stay in place, we know some go east, we know some go west. So, then, yeah, there. There are a lot of unknowns, but I think some of the questions that we still have may be answered in the coming years with a really interesting new little Bluetooth almost satellite beacon being put on the monarchs that might finally give us the information we need to track almost there, their every movement, not quite their every movement, but track a little bit better with more data points than the previous tracking method, which was kind of a tag that you had to visually spot, meaning either capture the butterfly or get lucky enough to see it with binoculars, which is as you can imagine, much harder. But nevertheless, some of those things like what the next generation will do. Does the next generation go all the way to the extent or are there multiple in between? A lot of unknowns and that, and again, that's one of the biggest reasons I have such a sense of awe of the monarch is for every question we answer, we get to ask two more, which kind of gets us in this never ending very fun, very insightful treadmill of learning and exploration with the natural world.
Seth Larson: This is one of my favorite things in doing this podcast is I've learned that there are still so many, mysteries to nature, and as much as we think we know and as much scientific research and technology as we brought to bear on understanding nature over the course of the last century or so, there's still so many questions that are left unanswered, and this is a great one. How, what happens to that next generation? Do they follow the same course, or do they deviate? That would be great to learn more and definitely keep us posted on that. I want to go back to the winter hibernation in Mexico for a minute, and I'd love for you to paint a picture for our listeners of what it actually looks like to go to their hibernation grounds and experience that phenomenon. Can you just sort of verbally take us through one of your expeditions and talk about, you know, where you go and what you see and hear, and how it makes you feel when you're there?
Court Whelan: So first you have to imagine, you know, where in Mexico we really are. We're in the highlands, we're in sort of an arid, dry environment. We are not in, you know, Acapulco, we're not in Puerto Vallarta. We're high up in the Mexican Sierras, and it's almost a little similar to like a Colorado or sort of Colorado Plateau landscape.
Imagine big firs and big pine trees. So, when we go there, we're in this really rural, beautiful countryside of high elevation Mexico, surrounded by, a series of extinct and active volcanoes on this neo volcanic belt. When we get to these colony sites, there are some sort of basic infrastructure, like a little ticket booth and a walkway. But we quickly passed that, and we started by taking a horseback ride. The first half hour or so is usually by horseback going up a relatively steep kind of dusty trail before we get off the horses and then walk the rest of the way, another maybe mile or so into the colonies. And I think the entire time you're on the horseback ride and you're getting off the horses and walking in the exciting building. You might see your first monarch fluttering about down low.
And then as you're hiking, you might see two or three more zooming by you. And then after a little while of walking through this beautiful fir forest, you start to see more monarchs, of course. But the first thing you're going to see that tells you you're in the colony is really these drooping clusters of what looks like, in some ways, kind of like dead leaves. Interestingly, when the monarchs are closed up, they have a real cream color on the outside of their, of their wings, and you almost can't even tell what they are until that sun warms 'me and they begin to spread their wings and you see that really iconic black and orange and it's extraordinary.
So, you're first met with this kind of intrigue and mystery of is this like, what is that? What are those large clumps dripping from the fir trees? And then you start to see them maybe flying or bursting from the trees, or you get closer and notice, oh my gosh, it's millions and millions of monarch butterflies.
Seth Larson: So, it's just a huge clump of butterflies, clinging to each other. Are like coming down from a tree?
Court Whelan: They're just like dripping off the fir boughs. It's extraordinary. They're huddled for what we believe to be a few reasons. Part of this might be protection from wind or rain or winter storms. Even though we're in Mexico, it can still get quite cold in the mountains. In fact, that coolness is what they're after. They're looking to be in their 40s and 50 degrees to make sure they don't burn off those fats and lipids that they're trying to store for their, their northward migration, their northward journey.
But yeah, they are quite literally dripping off these, these trees, these firs and these pines.
But again, you know, after we're there for a little while, the day is going to warm and that sun's going to begin to hit different parts of the colonies at different rates. We might see this cluster over here become bright orange as their wings open and they may burst from the trees, or they may steadily leave the trees and it's kind of this river of butterflies at times. And on a good warm day, of which there are many at this time of year, usually blue skies abound. You're going to gradually notice this monarch snow globe erupting around you. And, you know, at the peak of the day, you might see literally millions of butterflies flying all around you. Looking towards the sky they almost blot out the sun as that blue sky shines through their semi translucent wings. It's almost like little stained glass, pieces of glass flying in the air, and it's just absolutely extraordinary.
Seth Larson: Can I ask, um I love that description. Then, the idea of a snow globe of butterflies is really evocative, and I think that, again, having never been there, that puts a picture in my head of exactly what it must feel like to be there. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about how the population has ebbed and flowed over the years and if that experience changes in years when there are much larger populations than other years. And I'll put a graphic up on the screen, but basically you can see over the course of the last 20 years or so, the average population of monarch butterflies in this area has really dropped pretty precipitously. And the most recent report was better news, but I wonder if you can just talk a little bit about what it feels like year to year and if you've noticed a change over time.
Court Whelan: Yeah. Well, the good news is that the experience from year to year, although I know it's different, it's still an extraordinary event that doesn't really necessarily feel a whole lot different. In other words, from trip to trip or even day to day. I mean, I've probably been to the monarch colonies hundreds of times and every single time is different. And so, what you see, your experience, the level of activity, what the ambient temperature's like, or the amount of sky and clouds, it's going to change each and every time. And you know how much activity or how volumes the butterflies appear, really from a touristic standpoint, it kind of depends more on exactly where the butterflies are at that year.
You know, again, they, they kind of go to the same trees, but they move around a little bit even throughout the course of the same season. So, I have seen years where the colony is rather large, but you might have a more limited view because they're down in a valley or in a valley or. You know, it is less accessible. And I've seen other years where the numbers are smaller, unfortunately, but you just happen to have this super clear view. So, the experience is not highly correlated with their numbers. And I only say that because, I think that some people often worry that with the low numbers, the experience may not be worth seeing, and it couldn't be more opposite from that. It's still every single time I go down there, no matter what the numbers are, it's a life-changing experience even for me, having been doing it for 22, 23 years now.
But yes, the raw data, the actual numbers a definite downward trend. There are years when it bounces back a little bit, but the regression line or that average is of course at a downward slope, and that's not something that we're happy about, of course. We were looking at years where, you know, back in the late nineties, the maximum colony size, meaning the total service area or acreage of all monarch butterflies and all colonies in Mexico, because there are about a dozen each year, something like 40 plus acres. And now we're looking at something that's, you know, less than five and in some years, less than a couple. Fortunately, this year it did double from last year, which is a great, great sign. I mean, doubling the population is exactly what we hope for, exactly what we need. And I do notice it from a, on a personal level, just I notice how thick the clusters are, I notice how much coverage and acreage they're occupying, but then there's also this kind of million-dollar question of what the other colonies might look like. Some of 'me are truly inaccessible. They're on the side of volcanoes. You know, your researchers obviously see them, but it may not be something that the average visitor will go see. But nevertheless, by, you know, getting these counts each and every year, it gives us a really good idea of what these monarchs are doing in terms of conservation level and when they double, we're obviously very, very happy. When they're going down, we're even more concerned.
Nevertheless, I do have a really, really strong sense of hope for the monarch butterfly. I think that anytime you have the number of advocates you do. I mean, you know, just look around, do a Google search for monarch butterfly, and you're going to see pages and pages and pages of t-shirts and stickers and mugs and logos and organizations that you just, you have a lot of people that know and love this and, therefore a lot of people that are somehow integrated into the conservation and the saving of this butterfly. There's a great saying that I repeat often, but you cannot save what you do not love, and you cannot love what you do not know. And I think that the monarch is one of those things that so many people know it, so many people love it. Therefore, so many people are involved in saving it.
So, in some ways, not to ramble on here too long, but it's a little bit of a head scratcher as you know, how come we can't get over this threshold, this hurdle? Like what more needs to happen? And so, when we do get years in a row of lower and lower numbers, it simply means we're not doing enough. And it can be very overwhelming at times because we as a global, or at least a, you know, a North American conservation society and culture, like we are doing a lot, a lot of people are planting milkweed, a lot of people are educating the monarch butterflies, a lot of people are going to see the butterflies and falling in love with them. So, it's, it's definitely worrying when we see these declines. But again, just to end on that point, we can see massive upticks from year to year like we did between 2018 and 2019. Doubling, tripling even, you know, potential for quadrupling because you have these summertime populations that, you know, every female can lay up to 400 eggs. So, if you think about how many could come from the previous generation, the upward potential is huge. It's just that there, there, you know, there are so many pressures on the monarch butterfly.
Seth Larson: Yeah. Yeah, and I guess I'll, I'll mention just a couple of those pressures now. I mean, part of this is due to weather patterns and sort of natural variation that's out of our control. I mean, colder years or more volatile years in terms of rain and wind can really impact the population of the species as it goes through its migration. But there are other factors that play a really big role also, including the loss of milkweed, which you've already described as their primary source of food and where they lay all their eggs. Loss of milkweed across the US and Canada has been a real problem due to land use change and the use of herbicides and insecticides. And we've also seen issues over the years with forest degradation in Mexico where they spend their winters. So, the combination of those two factors has really contributed to the decline of the species. This most recent report did show a trend upwards for this year. As you've said, there have been other years when the trend went back upwards. I think the two years prior to this most recent winter, we saw a decline, which kind of brought us to one of the real low points we've had last winter. But you're right that so many people are really motivated to save the species. I think about my young son who's in kindergarten, I think last summer we happened to see a monarch in our neighborhood and immediately a five-year-old boy was just like, that's a monarch butterfly. It's so beautiful, can we go take a picture? And so, it's a species that really captures our imagination from a young age and I think a lot of people are really committed to saving it.
And I guess my next question to you is really for someone who maybe doesn't feel, it's sort of a natural motivation to go out of their way to save the monarchs, can you talk about why we should care about keeping monarchs in our world, in our ecosystem? What do people gain from a thriving monarch population?
Court Whelan: It's such an important question in the world of conservation. So, I want to quickly just touch on something you said before, about, you know, the efforts that we're doing in terms of minimizing forest degradation, which is just doing wonderfully in Mexico. The local folks have done so much good to curtail illegal logging.
People are doing more milkweed planting than ever. And so, it's always important to note that things can be bad but also get better at the same time. So, one of the things is, we do have to stay on the course. We can't dial any of those back and any of those down. We have to continue planting milkweed. We have to continue to monitor forest conservation and restoration, reforestation that I know, you know, it's something that World Wildlife Fund does so well, is reforesting of these areas of core zones, the buffer zones. Over 20 million trees in the last 10 years. I mean that's incredible. But for the average person, I mean, I'll kind of address this in two ways.
Court Whelan: I mean, I think there's, there are the people that do love the monarch, and they want to know how to help it. And, and I'll answer that by saying, do what you do best and do it for the conservation of the monarch butterfly. And that is a little bit of a catchall answer, but I think it's an important one because it's also shedding light that there's not only one answer and there's also not only one need. I could easily say, "Yeah, plant native milkweed. That's, that's the best thing. Create that habitat." But, you know, I don't have a green thumb. I'm terrible at growing milkweed. You'd think it'd be easy, but it's, it's not my forte. My forte is guiding and educating. Teachers in the classroom may be good at all of it, but they are especially good at inspiring the next generation. There are people that might be really good at writing their policy makers. There are people that might be really good photographers that want to do little social posts or make blogs or write their local newspaper. There are people that may have done well in business and wish to contribute to philanthropic organizations and those are all really, really good ways because we need them all.
Now to those folks that may not already be in love with the monarch butterfly, all it takes is one trip to Mexico and you will be. So that's a little bit of advice there. But truly I think we have to be very cognizant that not everybody necessarily loves nature, which, you know, may be hard to believe for listeners. But nevertheless, you have to speak to, to everybody to truly change culture and the reality is this area of Mexico is hyper important for the Mexican people. The mountains act as a watershed for some 6 million plus people, including Mexico City.
The monarch butterfly is essentially an umbrella species in some ways. If you conserve the monarch butterfly and the habitat it needs in Mexico, you are saving people. You are saving forests; you're saving a habitat for so many other critters. Monarch butterflies are great pollinators, and we get 80% plus of our food in the United States and really just North America in general from pollinators. So, instigating or saving natural pollinators is a huge, huge thing.
But then there's also kind of dancing the line between those that already buy into it and those that kind of need to be convinced. I think that there's something a little bit more philosophical and abstract that, you know, when there is something that so many people love, so many people want to see flourish, we should try to save it for its own sake, simply because we love it or someone in our family loves it. And I think that we're often very, very much trained in the world of conservation biology to create that justification and talk about things like pollination and all the ecosystem services, because those have demonstrable, like legit numerical values. But in some cases, I think we have to look at what do we really love in the world and what still gives us a sense of wonder and awe? What baffles the mind? What leads to new scientific discoveries well beyond just the critter being studied? And the monarch checks all those boxes.
Seth Larson: Yeah, that's beautifully said, and I love your advice for people to use their own sort of individual superpower. That's a, that's a term that I'll steal from our CEO. He likes to talk about our work with companies, that every company has its own superpower, and we try to bring those to bear on our conservation work when we partner with a company. But individual people all have a superpower too, like you said. Whether it's you've been successful in business, and you have a lot of funds available to invest or to donate to groups that are doing work. Or if you do have a green thumb and you can plant milkweed, that's fantastic and provides an important habitat for the butterfly. But there's lots of different things that all of us are good at, photography. And leaning into that and what makes sense for you, I think is a great piece of advice for listeners to take away, to think about what do you enjoy, what do you do really well, and how could you maybe apply that to conserving butterflies or really any other species?
I think it's a great piece of advice.
Court Whelan: That's exactly right. An emphasis on any other species truly, I mean, that goes not just for monarch butterflies, cause if you're really good at something, you're going to really enjoy it and it's like this nice kind of feedback loop where you're going to get better at it, you're going to be able to, you know, per unit time, you are going to do more good than doing something you don't enjoy or you're not particularly adept at.
So yeah, it's something that really resonates with people and I'm glad you enjoy that one, Seth.
Seth Larson: Yeah. So, I'll ask you just one more question to wrap up and then I'll let you go. I know you have a busy day, but the most recent report that we've referenced a few times in this conversation, it did show that conservation efforts are working and that monarchs did rebound this year nearly doubling in the area that they covered in Mexico. Still way below that historical average, so we've got a lot of work to do. But my question for you as we depart is based on not just this most recent report, but your experience leading these expeditions for Nat Hab over the years. Do you feel hopeful about the future for monarch butterflies?
Court Whelan: I absolutely do. And I have to admit, I am sort of a, an eternal optimist.
I think life is just more fun if you're hopeful. So, I kind of come back to this feeling that I sort of, I force myself to think on the optimistic side and the hopeful side, but that aside. The reason that I have such hope for the monarch butterfly really comes back to that love that people have for it, this, this knowing it, and loving it.
There are more people than ever on the face of planet Earth that know the monarch butterfly and love it.
Ever since it's discovered by Western scientists in the mid-1970s, it's just been this incredible growing momentum. And it's not just about the migratory phenomenon, this overwintering phenomenon, but it's about what's happening in the US.
It's taught in school classrooms, like in so many schools, especially in the elementary education, it is the subject to learn about ecosystems and life cycles and biology and I just think that when that many people understand and know something, it builds a belief system and a culture around it that everybody can do a little something.
They may not even know that they're doing something to conserve the monarch butterfly, but just because it's embedded into so much of our culture, not to mention Mexican culture with all the symbolism around Day of the Dead and just truly being there in physical location, but it's really a part of so many of our thoughts and kind of our belief system that I do think that it's something that, again, going back to what I said before, things can be in not so good of shape, which again, when we're looking at these numbers, we realize that they're down, but they can be getting better. And every year that those numbers uptick even slightly, it definitely gives me hope that the next generation, the next year, the next migratory time period is going to be even bigger.
Seth Larson: Yeah. Well Court, I appreciate your optimism and, thank you for spending this time with us today, I appreciate it.
Court Whelan: Pleasure, Seth.
Seth Larson: Thanks again to Court for joining the show today. I consider myself really lucky that I got to do this podcast and hear from so many different experts making a difference for nature, and I'm always jealous of their experiences, but hearing Court's stories as an expedition guide were particularly exciting and really make me want to get out of this office and out into the world.
That's a worthy goal if nothing else but I do hope this episode also taught you something about monarch butterflies and why they're worth saving. Please take Court's advice to heart and think about how you can make a difference, whether that's by planting milkweed in your yard or through some other means of influence.
And for those of you who do want to plant milkweed, I'll include a link in our show notes about the right kinds of milkweed to plant for your specific region. For now, thank you for listening and let's keep building a more sustainable future.