Get Involved in Helping the Monarchs!

Get your hands dirty for a good cause — no green thumb required!

Join us on May 5 to work on a monarch garden in Novato!!

The Marin Monarch Working Group has partnered with the Marin Humane Society to lay the groundwork (literally!) for a future pollinator paradise. Event activities will include pulling pesky Bermuda grass and prepping the ground for solarization. Come fall, we will return to plant a buffet of nectar-rich native plants and milkweed, creating a vibrant garden for monarch butterflies and other important pollinators.

Gloves and other equipment will be provided!

This event will be held on May 5 from 10am - 2 pm at Marin Humane Animal Shelter at 171 Bel Marin Keys Blvd, Novato

To RSVP please contact Audrey Fusco, SPAWN program director, at audrey@tirn.net

photo credit: Sarab Seth

Become a Community Scientist!

Restoring the monarchs won’t happen unless we have good information about their movements through the migration cycle and about the habitat available to nurture them and provide shelter throughout their journey.

Increasingly, advocates and researchers are relying on community scientists to provide the crucial data needed to identify the best ways to support the monarch. Learn how you can train to monitor monarchs in your area.

Community science draws upon data collected by community members trained to observe and create a record of their observations. Aggregating the observations of community observers allows researchers to collect more data more quickly than would be possible using more conventional methods. It's also a great opportunity for participants to learn more about species that interest them.

Community science draws on a wide variety of tools for observing and recording information. The most frequently used tool for reporting observations of monarchs is the application iNaturalist. On iNaturalist, when observers see an organism of interest, they take a photo which is then stamped with the time and location as well as an automated species identification. All the observations collected by observers are aggregated by the app and can be accessed by analysts.

Community science efforts such as the Western Monarch Count address important questions about the distribution of monarchs and milkweed across the western US. For the Western Monarch Count, the Xerces society has trained hundreds volunteers to seek and count monarch butterflies at their overwintering sites. The data they have collected for over 25 years is used by scientists, land managers, media, and educational institutions for documenting population trends. 

In recent years, other projects have included documentation of early spring dispersal patterns (Western Monarch Mystery Challenge) as well as identification of the maximum breeding population size and distribution in mid-summer (International Monarch Monitoring Blitz).  The Monarch Larva Monitoring Project tracks monarch eggs, larvae, and milkweed throughout North America. Local efforts such as those of the conducted by the Pollinator Posse document the role that home gardens can play in monarch recovery.

You can get involved in the Western Monarch Count! Go to the Xerces website to learn how to participate in a count.

Go to our Resources Section to check out all the national and local organizations working to advocate for monarchs. Find out how you can be involved!