Butterflies Go High Tech in a Race to Save Their Species
GOLETA, Calif. (KEYT) - For centuries, monarch butterflies have traveled thousands of miles across North America, guided by instincts that scientists are only beginning to understand.
Now, a team of researchers on California’s Central Coast is giving these fragile travelers a high-tech voice in their own survival.
At dawn on Ellwood Mesa in Goleta, biologist Charis van der Heide and her team set out under the first light of day.
Armed with long poles and fine nets, they search the eucalyptus groves for resting monarchs. “At 47 degrees, they can’t fly,” van der Heide explains. “That’s the perfect window to catch and tag them.”
Each carefully captured butterfly is gently placed into a container and brought to a small field station that doubles as a makeshift lab.
There, researchers use transmitters lighter than a grain of rice, attaching them to the butterflies with a tiny dab of eyelash glue.
The miniature trackers send real-time signals to an app called Project Monarch, which helps scientists monitor movement patterns, temperature responses, and migration behavior.
“This is groundbreaking technology,” says Melissa Fontaine, director of the Ellwood Friends Project. “For the first time, we could actually watch the monarch migration unfold across the continent.”
The work comes at a critical time.
Once numbering in the millions, monarch populations have plummeted over the past few decades due to habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change.
For volunteers like Craig Wakamiya, a docent at the Goleta Monarch Butterfly Grove, the research represents hope. “The opportunity to do science that could help save them — it’s quite a leap,” he says.
After each butterfly is tagged, the team returns it to the branch where it was found, its transmitter now silently pulsing data into the digital air.
“I hope they share their secrets with us,” van der Heide says. “I hope they become our teachers.”
For Goleta’s scientists, it’s a moment where ancient migration meets modern innovation — and a chance to listen to what these timeless travelers have to tell us, one fragile flight at a time.
