WSU study charts migration of 15,000 Monarch butterflies

After five years and nearly 15,000 tagged butterflies, scientists now have proof that Monarch butterflies migrate from the Pacific Northwest to California in late summer and fall, a journey averaging nearly 500 miles.

Most of the tagging was done by citizen scientists and inmates from the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. The prisoners were carefully trained in raising, tagging and releasing Monarchs.

The findings were recently published in the Journal of the Lepidopterists’ Society.

WSU Entomology professor David James spearheaded the project, which took a massive amount of time a...