Monarch 'death data' could help save endangered butterflies

This endangered monarch is nicknamed Eddie, and sadly, Eddie is probably dead. Sort of a sad acceptance, I guess, that it's likely he's not going to make the full trip. But because of Laura Burns, Eddie was fitted with this nifty backpack that tracked his entire perilous journey from the Canadian prairies almost to Mexico. So his death may not be in vain after all. Let me explain. This summer, Laura Burns used eyelash glue to fit Eddie with a toothpick-sized radio tracker, He was one of 29 monarchs tagged and released in Manitoba that you can track on the Project Monarch app. A few never made it past the Canada-US border. These two did. Number 11 made it to Mexico in just 40 days. At that time, in early October, Eddie's signal was beeping near the edge of a cemetery southwest of Kansas City. Then, Eddie's signal went dark. He made it quite far. You know, over 1,200 kilometers. He visited five states, you know, he had. A remarkable journey. It's really incredible that a butterfly that small and light can go even that far. Environment and Climate Change Canada has only been tracking monarchs for a couple years, but already there are some subtle hints emerging. Last year, there were a few big wind events that swept through the Kansas region, not all that far from where Eddie stopped beeping this year. It happened a couple of times where there was these stallouts because of... Really strong winds in the opposite direction to which they're moving. We lost some of our tags. And that suggests to me the weather that they're actually experiencing now might have changed through time with climate change. And so that's going to be really important to look into. For the ones that actually make it to Mexico, well, their data could reveal important pit stops along the way where the monarchs are stopping to fuel up on nectar or just to take a nap. For the less lucky ones, their data may reveal weather, more frequent severe weather events, drought, things that are ratcheting up because of climate change. are beginning to take more of a toll on the monarch butterfly.