Date: 02/13/2007

Number: 1

I have seen monarchs on numerous occasions this winter. I think most of our "winter" monarchs have become more or less resident. I have recaptured 3 of the 32 winter-tagged butterflies, all within a few 100 meters of the original capture site. I have recaptured 3 of the Ft. Johnson, James Island (near Charleston, SC) "winter" monarchs (tagged late Nov), 1 once and the other two 3 times each; all from 29 Nov - 4 Dec.

It has been a mild winter in the Southeast, at least until last week when we had 4-5 consecutive nights in the Charleston, SC area with night-time lows near of just below freezing. I would not be surprised if last week’s low temperatures caused mortality in our wintering monarch population even as far south as Charleston and along all of the SC coast, and particularly to the 19 monarchs that I had reared indoors and released at Ft. Johnson during the last 2 weeks of Jan.

Charleston, SC

Latitude: 32.8 Longitude: -79.9

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