A female monarch. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Science journalist Janet Marinelli, writing in Yalee360,  said it well in her Dec. 21st piece, "To Protect Monarch: a Plan to Save the Sacred Firs."

This should be widely read, widely distributed and widely discussed.

Basically, it's crucial to plant milkweed, the host plant of the besieged and dwindling monarch, but it's also crucial to plant more oyamel fir trees (Abies religiosa) in central Mexico, where deforestration and climate disruption and loss of milkweed combine to rage an ongoing war against the migrating monarchs. These firs are the favorite of overwintering monarchs that migrate from the Eastern United States, and as far away as Canada.

This tree is called a sacred fir ”because of its narrow, conic tip that resembles clasped hands with fingers pointed upwards, praying," Marinelli writes. "These dense, dark-green conifers protect the monarchs from cold and rainy winter nights."

Says Wikipedia: "Sacred fir is named after the use of cut foliage in religious festivals in Mexico, notably at Christmas. It is also the preferred tree for the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) to reside in colonies during its hibernation in Mexico. The distribution of this tree is narrowing because of deforestation and human impact."

The fir is on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

"A billion butterflies once fluttered down from as far as southern Canada to paint the firs a quivering crazy quilt of orange and black with white spots," Marinelli eloquently wrote. "But due to the usual litany of destructive factors — from the deforestation of Mexico's oyamel fir trees to the loss of milkweeds, the primary host plants for monarch caterpillars up north — their numbers have plummeted. By 2014, there were just 33 million of them "

So the scientists in Mexico seek to plant these trees at higher altitudes--not just to save this species of trees, but to save the monarchs.

Cuauhtémoc Sáenz-Romero, a forest geneticist at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, and the plan's architect, was saying: “We have to act now. Later will be too late, because the trees will be dead or too weak to produce seeds in enough quantity for large reforestation programs.”

Agreed. It's important to act now. "Later will be too late." Saving the sacred firs is a crucial tool in the save-the-monarch toolbox.

Humankind, so apt at destroying habitat instead of protecting it, now needs to backtrack and save the environment, the firs and the monarchs.

Before. It. Is. Too. Late.

Tiny is perched on a bamboo stick. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Not all monarch butterflies that you rear will make it.

Such was this case this week with when two monarchs eclosed, both crippled and struggling to survive.  The damage to their crumbled wings may have occurred when, as jade-green chrysalids, they fell to the floor of the mesh butterfly habitat. We gently picked them up, tied dental floss around each cremaster, and hung them back up again in a scene reminiscent of Christmas stockings hung by the fireplace.

No. 21 eclosed. Then No. 22. But these monarchs, the last of the season, needed names instead of numbers.

The first one we named "Tiny." The second one, "Tim."  They were named after the fictional character, Tiny Tim, from the 1843 novel A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  Tiny Tim couldn't walk but he brought joy to the Bob Cratchit family and he changed the heart of Ebenezer Scrooge. 

Life is as good as can be expected. We're rolling cotton balls in a sugar/water mixture (with a dash of soy sauce for vitamins and minerals) and they're eating. They're climbing on the lantana blossoms during the day. At night they scurry to a roost at the top of the habitat and remain there until morning.

Yesterday, we took them outside and placed them on the spokes of a miniature penny-farthing (big wheel bicycle).   They soaked up the warmth of the afternoon sun and seemed energized. But when they tried to fly, they tumbled to the ground. Maybe due to Ophryocystis elektroscirrha (OE)?

Now they're back inside the house, cozy in their butterfly habitat with the fresh lantana and newly soaked cotton balls and Adele singing "Hello" on the CD.

They're not going to make it. We know that. They can flutter but they cannot fly. They can feel the warmth of the sun but they'll never migrate, overwinter and feel another warmth--the warmth of a cluster at the top of an 80-foot eucalyptus tree.

Butterfly guru Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis, said it best: "Life is hard."

Yes, it is.

About 1 percent of caterpillars make it to adults, he said.

Is the overwintering monarch butterfly population along California's coast increasing or decreasing?

"So far,  far the picture is rather mixed for the number of monarchs in California," according to Matthew Shepherd, communications director for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. "More than 130 sites have been surveyed," he told us today. "Northern sites have more butterflies that last year, other sites fewer, and there are many southern sites that haven't yet reported data. A full analysis will be available in January."

The western monarchs, that is those that west of the Rockies, migrate to the California coast to overwinter while the eastern monarchs head to the mountains of central Mexico.

In a news release issued today from its headquarters in Portland, Ore., the Xerces Society said that early data from its Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count suggests "a small increase in butterfly numbers in some parts of the overwintering range."

That is, 2015 may have "been a better year for the beleaguered monarch butterfly in the western United States." 

"The overall population size is still far lower than it was in the 1990s, when more than one million butterflies were counted," the news release said. "The surveys indicate that sites north of Santa Cruz are hosting more butterflies than previous years, whereas sites in Monterey, San Luis Obispo, and Santa Barbara counties are reporting fewer numbers of butterflies on average. Several new sites have been reported, including some from Marin County with up to 10,000 monarchs. The data is not yet available for Santa Cruz County and southern California."

The Xerces Society launched its Western Monarch Thanksgiving Count in 1997. This year some 85 volunteers surveyed more than 130 sites over a three-week period centered around Thanksgiving. 

We'll all have to wait until January to see the final tallies.

Meanwhile, we were happy to see monarchs roosting in November in the Berkeley Aquatic Park  (for the first year ever) and on Mare Island, Vallejo, (maybe also first?) but those clusters may be temporary.  As butterfly guru Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis, says--they may move on as soon as the weather turns foul.

Maybe they're on their way to Santa Cruz?

"There are some sites where monarchs gather in fall, almost like staging posts in preparation for moving to overwintering locations," Shepherd told us. 

Be sure to read the Xerces Society blog by Sarina Jepson, endangered species program director of the Xerces Society, and the news release issued by Xerces Society.

Where can you observe the overwintering monarchs in California? The Xerces Society has kindly provided a web page with links to overerwintering sites in Alameda, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

Counting butterflies before they eclose from their chrysalids is sort of like counting chickens before they hatch.

We've done both: raised chickens and reared butterflies.

Fact is, you never know if a butterfly will eclose. The old adage of "Don't count your chickens before they hatch" rings true, as does "Don't count your butterflies before they eclose."

We've reared and released a total of 20 monarch butterflies this year in Vacaville, Calif.  It's a small conservation effort, true, but what a difference it's made for those 20 monarchs!  Now three chrysalids remain.  Unlike the others, all three chrysalids are outdoor chrysalids. Two are hanging in an aquarium setting and look viable. One is tucked inside a zippered mesh laundry hamper and shows no sign of life or pending life.

The "no-sign-of-life" chrysalis turned from jade green to black on Nov. 15. Aha, we thought. We'll get a butterfly within 48 hours. That was the case with our indoor chrysalids once they darkened. (Note that a chrysalis looks like a gold-studded green jewel for about 10 days before it darkens. Then the monarch ecloses and hangs onto the transparent pupal case until it unfolds and dries its wings.)

This time nothing happened. We could clearly see the wing pigment. Hello, you in there! Time's up! Are you coming out or what? 

Hmm, we thought. Maybe this is a "what." Cold weather delaying the eclosure? The "P" word--parasitized? The "D" word--diseased or dead? 

So we contacted butterfly guru Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis. He's been monitoring butterfly populations in central California for more than 40 decades (see his website). He's the author of Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions (California Natural History Guides), a book, by the way, that's available in the Bohart Museum of Entomology gift shop on campus as well online. 

It's not parasitized, he said, or it would not have developed the wing pigment.  

Then Shapiro's keen eyes detected this:  "On the dorsal surface there is a kink in the integument and there is a lot of intersegmental membrane showing. I think your beast developed to the pharate adult and died uneclosed--three weeks ago."

He recommends we keep it hanging for a few more days to see what happens. "The integument should fall off and you can inspect the pharate cadaver!" 

Well, let's see. One down and two to go and then it's all over until next year.

Oh, wait, don't count your monarchs before they eclose...