Monarch Joint Venture

Monarch Joint Venture Partnering to conserve the monarch butterfly migration. The monarch migration is one of nature’s most spectacular events. Visit our FAQ website!

North American monarchs travel up to an astonishing 3,000 miles in an annual migration from their summer breeding habitat to overwintering grounds. (Looking for an answer to a monarch question? http://monarchjointventure.org/resources/faq)

The Monarch Joint Venture (MJV) is a partnership of federal and state agencies, non-governmental organizations, and academic programs that are working together to support and coordinate efforts to protect the monarch migration across the lower 48 United States. The MJV is committed to a science-based approach to monarch conservation work, guided by the North American Monarch Conservation Plan (2008). The monarch migration was listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as an endangered phenomenon in 1983. In 2010, the World Wildlife Fund included monarchs on its list of the “Top 10 to Watch” in 2010: species that are thought to be in need of close monitoring and protection.

This time of year, when most flowers have stopped blooming for the season, asters stand out, with their striking blooms ...
10/08/2026

This time of year, when most flowers have stopped blooming for the season, asters stand out, with their striking blooms often lasting into October.⁠
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If you're looking to add flowers to your garden next year to benefit fall pollinators, American asters are a great place to start. Plus, they are a host plant for several butterfly species, including Pearl Crescents and Northern Crescents.⁠
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There are a number of American aster species, with New England Aster being one of the most popular species across eastern North America. Others include Smooth Blue Aster and Aromatic Aster, among many more.⁠
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New England Asters generally grow between three and five feet tall with lots of flower heads per plant, bringing life and beauty to your gardens into the fall.

NAMI starts next week! The Online North American Monarch Institute is a four-week professional development opportunity f...
10/07/2026

NAMI starts next week! The Online North American Monarch Institute is a four-week professional development opportunity for K-12 and preservice teachers, as well as non-formal educators. Explore monarch biology, migration, and conservation, and learn how to use monarchs and other invertebrates to teach science, math, art, language, and more.

This is a self-paced but time-bound professional development course that runs October 12 - November 8, with two office-hours opportunities to speak directly with MJV staff.

🦋 8 hours of professional development
🦋 Digital Monarchs and More curriculum guide included
🦋 Certificate of completion also available upon request

Learn more and register at the link in the comments.

This fall, as part of Project Monarch, the Monarch Joint Venture deployed BlūMorpho tags in southern Indiana to help fi...
10/06/2026

This fall, as part of Project Monarch, the Monarch Joint Venture deployed BlūMorpho tags in southern Indiana to help fill in a gap in deployments.

These solar-powered trackers weigh just 60 milligrams and operate at Bluetooth frequency, allowing the detection of monarchs hundreds of times by everyday smartphones along their migration paths. Project Monarch is a collaborative effort founded by Cellular Tracking Technologies and Cape May Point Arts and Science Center.

These monarchs have taken varying paths along their migration. One of them, Sorin-MJVFWS-IN26-004, which you can see in the first photo, went south into Alabama and was most recently detected in Mississippi.

Others have made it further west already, like Sam-MJVFWS-IN26-001 and Greg-MJVFWS-IN26-009. Sam was most recently detected near the Texas-Oklahoma border, while Greg went through Memphis and southern Arkansas, having last been detected southeast of Dallas.

These tags were provided by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The Sam Shine Foundation and Buffalo Trace Land Trust provided a space – and many monarchs – for the event, where collaborators from Indiana, Kentucky, and Ohio came to have initial discussions about this technology, their research interests, and public engagement opportunities.

You can learn more about our 2026 tagging efforts and view the status of migrating monarchs by clicking the links in the comments.

Mark your calendars for the next webinar in our Monarch Conservation Webinar Series! On October 27th, Steve Barker, Mana...
10/06/2026

Mark your calendars for the next webinar in our Monarch Conservation Webinar Series!
On October 27th, Steve Barker, Manager of Environmental Permitting and Biodiversity at NiSource, will discuss pollinator conservation in the energy sector and how NiSource supports pollinators.

If you have not registered for the series yet, you may do so at the link in the comments.

Get ready for the Western Monarch Count with The Xerces Society! This annual surveying effort tracks overwintering monar...
10/05/2026

Get ready for the Western Monarch Count with The Xerces Society! This annual surveying effort tracks overwintering monarchs and their habitat in the Western United States, and training starts soon!

🦋 Virtual Training for New Volunteers: October 7 @ 5:30 pm - 7:00 pm
🦋 Virtual Training for returning volunteers: October 8 @ 5:30 pm - 6:30 pm
🦋 In-field Training: Across California, starting this weekend!

There are THREE official survey periods: early-season (Oct 17 – Nov 1, 2026), mid-season (Nov 14 – Dec 6, 2026), and late-season (Dec 26, 2026 – Jan 10, 2027).

Learn more and sign up via the link in the comments.

On September 30, 2026, a proposed settlement was filed in federal court over the monarch butterfly’s Endangered Species ...
10/02/2026

On September 30, 2026, a proposed settlement was filed in federal court over the monarch butterfly’s Endangered Species Act (ESA) proposed listing. If the court approves it, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) must submit its final decision on whether to list the monarch to the Federal Register by June 6, 2030. The settlement sets a deadline. It does not decide the outcome, and monarchs are not currently protected under the ESA.

Learn more via the link in the comments.

What are monarch roosts?Monarch butterflies migrate alone during the day. At night, they come down and gather in trees i...
09/30/2026

What are monarch roosts?

Monarch butterflies migrate alone during the day. At night, they come down and gather in trees in clusters, called roosts. Seeing these gatherings is one way to know where monarchs are migrating at a given time.

Some roosts have only a handful of butterflies, while others will have hundreds or even thousands. Some last only a night or two, while some trees will be filled with monarchs for longer. Some areas will be used year after year as monarchs make their annual southbound migration.

Journey North, a community science program of the Monarch Joint Venture, has been tracking monarch roosts for more than 20 years. Over the past two months, we have received hundreds of roost reports, recently reaching as far south as Texas and Oklahoma. Follow along with the final stages of the monarch migration by checking out the Journey North maps, which we'll link in the comments.

These incredible photos from Journey North volunteers showcase just some of these roosts from the 2026 season. Photos: Bruce in Hartley, Iowa; Sarah in Clarington, Ontario; Guest user in Ruthton, Minnesota; Cammie in Springville, Iowa

09/29/2026

Monarch butterflies in the migratory generation may fly upwards of 2,000 miles to their winter destinations. How does an insect that weighs less than a gram make such a long journey?

Monarchs are able to travel such far distances because they fly very efficiently. They take advantage of air currents and actually soar, as many birds do. They choose altitudes at which they can take advantage of the wind to help them on their long migratory flights, and they don't fly when there's a strong wind blowing in the wrong direction.

If you find yourself thinking about monarch butterflies often or if you're just getting started in your monarch butterfly journey and you want to learn more, you may be interested in the Monarch Joint Venture's free FAQ course.

This self-paced online course is designed to answer your questions about monarchs and their conservation, ranging from monarch biology to milkweed to migration and everything in between. Check out the link in the comments to sign up.

This year, the Monarch Joint Venture has worked with partners to deploy over 100 monarch tags in Minnesota, Nebraska, an...
09/25/2026

This year, the Monarch Joint Venture has worked with partners to deploy over 100 monarch tags in Minnesota, Nebraska, and Indiana as part of Project Monarch, a collaborative effort founded by Cellular Tracking Technologies and the Cape May Point Arts and Science Center.

These trackers weigh just 60 milligrams and operate at Bluetooth frequency, allowing the detection of monarchs by everyday smartphones along their migration paths. Some of these tagged monarchs have been detected hundreds of times already.

In Nebraska, MJV partnered with Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium and the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission to tag nearly 100 monarchs. One of them, Brooke_NEB26_037, has been detected in Texas!

MJV also partnered with Three Rivers Park District to tag monarchs in Crow-Hassan Park Reserve in Minnesota with funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and tagged monarchs at its Belle Plaine campus in Minnesota with funding from NextEra Energy Resources.

One of these monarchs from Crow-Hassan Park Reserve, KIM60-MJV-MN26-010, has taken an interesting path and was most recently detected in Colorado. One from Belle Plaine, NANCY-MJV-MN26-001, was detected in Oklahoma, with a few others as far south as Kansas.

Each of these monarchs has traveled more than 500 miles from their tagging locations as they move toward their overwintering sites, but there's still a lot of distance to cover. You can follow along with individual monarchs' movements across North America this fall through the Project Monarch app, which we'll link in the comments.

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2233 University Avenue W, Suite 426
Saint Paul, MN
55114

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