Date: 10/07/2015

Number: 2

Dr. Lincoln Brower asked me to forward these images to you and asked that you start tallying late mating behavior of monarchs. They were taken on Oct 7, 2015 along Tom's Cove at Assateague National Seashore by Kevin Holcomb Supervisory Wildlife Biologist, USFWS, Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge.  We were both holding the mated pair so I could tag them with the least amount of disruption.

If you returned to Assateague Island now, you would not recognize it.  This last storm did more damage to the beach areas on the south end of the island (Tom's Cove and Tom's Hook) than Hurricane Sandy did.  With the help of NPS and USFWS volunteers, we had planted over 9,000 seaside goldenrod plants at this critical stopover for migrating monarchs.  All are gone now, with the exception of a few clumps along the bayshore.  Even worse, all the small shrubs (bayberry, groundsel tree, marsh elder) and the eastern red-cedar trees have all been killed, uprooted or washed away-- so now there are no protected monarch roosting spots at this site.  But there is some good news.  The refuge has a new manager, and the staff is now ready to revisit and implement some of my recommended monarch management strategies. So, hopefully more habitat will be created, enhanced, and protected for monarchs in the near future.  Since this was my last year tagging at CNWR, I requested that they create a fall intern position so that my work may continue, and the manager agreed!

Assateague National Seashore, MD

Latitude: 39.2 Longitude: -77.3

Observed by: Denise
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