[NATURE SOUNDS]
Today, we're coming to you from the butterfly field.
[THEME MUSIC]
Hi, everyone.
Welcome back to the US Fish and Wildlife Service's
"Conservation Connect," the place where
you learn about exciting careers, cool species,
and the latest technology that conservation professionals use
to study and protect wildlife.
Here in West Virginia, the monarch butterflies
have been flying all summer long.
Now that the weather has cooled, monarchs from all
over are ready to take their long journey to their wintering
grounds.
Join me now as we learn about this fascinating and beautiful
species.
[THEME MUSIC]
To tell us more about monarchs, I
have US Fish and Wildlife Service
biologist, Tracy McCleaf, our monarch expert.
Tracy, can you talk to us about how
you got interested in monarchs.
Well when I was growing up, my grandmother
was always really interested in monarchs.
And with that influence, I really
became interested in nature and insects.
And in college, I studied insects
and little bit of butterflies.
And then when I had the chance here
at the National Conservation Training Center
to study monarchs, I jumped at it.
And it's been great.
They're really interesting creatures.
Now, I have heard that monarchs can migrate hundreds of miles.
Is that really true?
Yeah.
Actually they can fly thousands of miles.
The ones we tag here at NCTC will fly over 2,300 miles
to get their [INAUDIBLE] wintering grounds in Mexico.
[MUSIC]
Now, how do we know this to be true
that monarchs are migrating thousands of miles?
Because of the tags that we put on the monarchs.
Now, wait a minute.
I've heard of, you know, large mammals like elk or caribou
having these big radio collars that can carry
all this information and data.
But monarchs are really tiny.
Yeah.
How can you put a transmitter on a monarch to collect data?
That's a great question.
We get asked that a lot.
We don't have any little tiny wee radio-transmitters
that we're using.
What we actually use are stickers.
They're just plain simple low-tech stickers.
It's got an email address and a phone number.
So if you find a butterfly with one of these tags,
you call it and report it.
And Monarch Watch, in the case of these tags,
will track that data.
And then we know where the butterfly started
and where it got found.
To help us look for monarchs was our youth host, Travis.
All right, Travis.
Are you ready to catch some butterflies?
I'm ready to catch some butterfly.
All right.
Tracy, what do we need to do?
Well, what we're going to do is kind
of go out here in the field and see if we can shake some up
with our brush beater net.
And with your butterfly nets, if you
happen to come up on one on the flower, come up behind it.
If you hold your net up high over it,
they'll tend to fly up when they scare.
OK.
And then you can bring it down.
And then as you come down across it,
you'll flip your net so that you capture
the butterfly inside the net.
And you'll hold it gently as you come back here.
And we'll try to tag it.
Best way to catch them if they're flying
is just run after them and try to scoop them up in the net.
It's really kind of fun.
All right.
Well we're ready.
Are you ready?
Yep.
And I think I just saw one over there.
We should go try to catch it.
Let's head over there.
All right Tracy, show us the monarchs.
Where are they?
After some searching, we spotted one flying just ahead.
There's one.
Oh.
There he is.
Here we go.
[INAUDIBLE]
And then when we thought we would
be completely out of luck, Tracy spotted one down in the brush.
There's one over there.
Oh, yes.
I see it.
Travis, right here.
Right here on this one.
Travis slowly and gently crept towards the monarch
and captured it right into his net.
Beautiful.
All right!
Good job!
That's awesome!
Travis, that was an incredible catch.
Tracy, good eye on that one.
What happens now?
How do we tag this monarch?
Well, I'll get the butterfly out of the net here.
And Travis, let me hand you the tag.
Now you can see-- see this spot right here?
The males will have that spot on both of the hind wings.
And the females won't.
You can see it better when the butterfly opens its wings
and you're looking at the top of the butterfly.
We always want to put the sticker in this cell
right here that's kind of shaped--
Yeah.
Like a mitten.
Stick it there.
Get it off the paperclip if you can, and then just
press it with your fingers.
You just want to press it gently.
Hold it for a few seconds to make sure it adheres.
This doesn't hurt him, doesn't slow him down.
And the stuff is-- the biggest advance
in these is the stickiness.
This stuff has become stickier and stickier over the years.
It's not going anywhere.
It'll stick with the butterfly until the end.
So for data, it's important to record everything accurately.
We date it.
Can you read the--
What is the tracking number on that?
There's three letters and three numbers
that identify this butterfly.
UHC420.
I've got today's date.
You said that this is a--
Male.
A male.
OK.
And how did we find him?
Did we rear him?
Or did we find him in the wild?
We found him in the wild.
So I'll put a W for wild.
And we want to put our location.
Right.
And then all this information is used
by Monarch Watch and the Citizen Science Projects.
But this guy's probably on his way to Mexico.
Well, I'm going to say this guy's probably
had enough excitement for one morning.
Do you think we should release him and let him get on his way?
I think so.
Yes.
OK.
He's got a long way to go.
Ready?
Yep.
You can see the spots there real well
when he opens his wings up.
Very evident that it's a male there.
Yeah.
And those actually have pheromones in them.
In some butterflies, they're important in mating.
In the females, those veins that you see,
they'll be a lot thicker on the female
than they are there on the male.
These are about the same size.
He's being really cooperative.
Yeah.
He's probably like alien abduction,
wondering what happened to him.
Oh, there he goes.
All right.
[MUSIC]
From their amazing life cycle to their incredible migration,
monarchs are spectacular creatures.
I know that I'm going to be ordering my own monarch tags
and finding monarchs in my backyard next year.
Maybe your school can create a pollinator garden,
plant milkweed, or observe and tag monarchs
as part of your class.
We'll see you guys next time on the US
Fish and Wildlife Service's "Conservation Connect."
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