How NYers Can Help Monarch Butterflies On Their Long Migration South

NEW YORK — It's once again time to lend everyone's favorite migrating pollinators a hand on the long, arduous journey south for the winter.

Monarch butterflies begin their annual fall migration around mid-August, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC). The butterflies that will soon begin passing through our region en masse are the great-great-grandchildren of the Monarchs that migrated to Mexico last fall, according to the agency.

To help celebrate the Monarch journey, the NYSDEC is offering a few easy ways we can help the butterflies by providing nectar pitstops and keeping those areas protected.

• Turn a portion of your lawn into a wildflower meadow—plant milkweed or other native wildflowers.
• Delay mowing areas with milkweed until later in the fall.
• Avoid using herbicides—they kill all life stages of monarchs (egg, caterpillar, pupa, and adult).
• Report sightings of adults online. View a map of the sightings so far this year.

The agency also has a handy chart that shows when migration peaks in different regions of the New York.

A little help along this critical journey can go a long way towards helping the "painted" pollinators to thrive.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature said that migrating Monarch butterflies have moved closer to extinction in the past decade — prompting scientists to officially designate them as "endangered." The Monarch butterfly population has reportedly declined by as much as 84 percent between 1996 to 2021.