Tagging Fairyland's Monarchs

By C.J. Hirschfield

Last week, Fairyland horticulturist Jackie Salas realized a dream she’d doggedly been pursuing for four years: the right to put a tag on the wing of a monarch butterfly that hails from Fairyland’s gardens. What may result from her quest could make a difference for our planet.

First, a note about the plight of the monarchs. In the face of monarch population declines, passionate conservationists are fighting to save them. The Monarch Joint Venture, a partnership of federal and state agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and academic programs, is one of the key players in the conservation effort. As the MJV puts it: “Conserving, enhancing, and restoring monarch breeding, migration and overwintering habitat is essential in reversing this downward trend.”

So how does Fairyland fit in? For years, Jackie has been working to educate local kids about the importance of urban pollinators in general, and monarchs specifically. Her Monarch Magic program invites local families and schools to foster caterpillars as an educational experience, and then to release the butterflies back into our park.

Fairyland horticulturist Jackie Salas greets Monarch Magic volunteers with fresh milkweed.

There are two different monarch populations in the U.S. One population lives east of the Rockies, with a migratory path from Mexico to Canada. Fairyland’s population lives west of the Rockies; its path goes from the California coast up to British Columbia.

But here’s what Jackie wants to know about the population that grows from eggs in Oakland: Are “our” monarchs staying only in our area—which she says is fine for educational purposes—or are they augmenting the migration population, having an effect on conservation of the whole western population?

“Wouldn’t that be amazing?” Jackie asks.

That’s what’s so cool about tagging. Once a year, around Thanksgiving, trained and permitted citizen scientists up and down the California coast, where known overwintering spots exist, gently collect and identify monarchs that have been tagged. Tags include a phone number and specific information that can track where the butterflies’ journey began. (The tagging process does not affect the butterflies’ wings.)

A circular yellow tag on a monarch butterfly -- the first one tagged by Fairyland's Jackie Salas.

Jackie had to be certified by the Monarch Alert program at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, before she was issued the tags. (Most of the institutions that receive certification are universities.) First she needed to collect data on “her” caterpillars: their sex (males have glands that look like a dot), their wing length, and whether they were afflicted by O.E., a debilitating protozoan parasite (these results need to be sent to the University of Georgia as well as to Cal Poly).

Once the program was convinced of Jackie’s (and Fairyland’s) scientific credibility and legitimacy, she received her tags. The training to become official taggers took about 2.5 hours; Jackie and Fairyland gardener Jennifer Hurlburt completed it on a rainy day last winter so they would be ready in advance. 

Unfortunately, she received the tags in March, just as the monarchs had left to migrate east, so she had to wait until now – when they returned from their migration and laid eggs – to use them. Jackie will be tagging 25 butterflies this year; she hopes to prove to Monarch Alert – by carefully filling out and returning our data sheets – that we can handle more tags next year. 

Here’s how committed is Jackie to this program, even after four years of waiting: As soon as our latest batch of monarchs emerged, she tagged the first four at home, while her 6-month-old baby was taking a nap. “Yes, it’s a labor of love that I take home with me when necessary,” she says, “because you can’t tell the monarchs that it’s your day off!”

This year’s Thanksgiving counts will only show “our” new monarchs as being local. Ultimately, though, we may learn that these butterflies love Oakland enough to spend their whole lives here, as many of us humans do.

Our current caterpillar population numbers more than 200, and in the spring, we’ll tag more butterflies. Next Thanksgiving’s citizen scientists’ counts will reveal whether Oakland-born monarchs are going to help augment the natural population and turn around the decline. “We’re in it for the long haul,” says Jackie.

So stay tuned. If it’s determined that little Fairyland can be a conservation hero, then we will hold one hell of a party to celebrate the repopulation of “the fairies of our earth,” as Jackie calls her six-legged friends.

And if not? We’ll still enjoy the beautiful butterflies that have chosen Oakland as their home.

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C.J. Hirschfield has served for 16 years as executive director of Children’s Fairyland, where she is charged with the overall operation of the nation’s oldest storybook theme park.