SAN ANTONIO -Texas – Despite the leaves falling from the trees, temperatures finally getting cooler, and the time change, something else associated with the fall season appears to be missing.
Monarch butterflies have been few and far between so far.
Kristen Winslow, the invertebrate specialist at the San Antonio Zoo, said the weather is a major factor.
“Because the weather this year, there was more rain, the temperatures are weird at different times, the monarchs follow those cues of the seasons to set off on their migrations,” Winslow said. “So, they’ve just been getting the signal a little later than they would have in past years.”
She said the recent cooler temperatures gave the monarchs the nudge they needed to help push them south to Mexico, where they will spend the winter.
Just this week, Winslow said she started to see monarchs at all the pollinator stations around the San Antonio Zoo.
KSAT spoke with Monika Maeckle, the founder of the Texas Butterfly Ranch, on Friday.
Maeckle said she, too, has started to see monarchs in her yard.
When asked about the butterflies’ late arrival, she also referenced the weather, specifying the hot temperatures the area has been experiencing.
She explained the hotter it is, the more energy the monarchs have to use to make the up to 3,000-mile journey from Canada to Mexico.
In her most recent article, Maeckle said a recent study suggested more monarchs are just not making the trip south but holding up at pollinator stations along their migration route.
“As they burn through their lipids, which are the fats that help them survive a cold winter for months in Mexico, they run out of time and are less inclined to keep going,” Maeckle wrote.
She cited the study, writing, “hot temperatures cause monarch butterflies to ‘drop out’ of the migration altogether.”
Winslow mentioned the same observation.
“We are seeing some more non-migratory populations of monarchs popping up so, they are getting into a point where they’re like, ‘hey, the weather isn’t making me want to leave and there’s plenty of food and water here,’” she said. “So, we are seeing an establishment of more permanent colonies and a little bit less migrations as well.”
Winslow said in an assuring voice that the monarch butterflies are on the way, and we’ll be seeing a lot more of them as the weather cools down.
She did, however, want to manage expectations and said not to expect to see those big swarms of monarchs, at least throughout San Antonio, that we used to see a few years ago.
She said researchers have found that environmental changes appear to be altering the butterflies’ migration habits.
But Winslow said there are other areas that will have that higher concentration of monarchs.
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