The Beaumont Enterprise had an article today about the migrating monarch butterflies that are moving through Texas on their way to Mexico for the winter. The article reports that the butterflies took a more coastal path due to a cold front with winds that pushed them toward the coast.

The article elaborated on how such tiny creatures are able to migrate such amazingly long distances:

Monarchs will fly during the day, using wind currents and thermal lifts, and rest at night in trees and plants…”They are masters of using available winds,” Quinn said. These winds carried them to the coast. “They go with the wind and then grab on,” Burkett said. “They don’t mind going over open water but need to control where they are going.”

Tens of millions of monarch butterflies migrate about 3000 miles every year, traveling about 80 miles a day. The monarchs east of the Rockies go to the mountains of central Mexico for the winter and the monarchs west of the Rockies go to the California coast.

Threats to monarchs include development and logging in their summer and winter home areas, and the elimination of milkweed, which is the only food that monarch larvae can eat.

In the past, logging in Mexico has left wintering monarchs exposed to deadly cold weather, and in the 1990s, two snowstorms killed millions of monarchs. Efforts are now underway to protect forested areas where the monarchs prefer to winter.

Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge is one of the places where thousands of monarch butterflies moved through during this year’s migration. The 34,000-acre refuge is about an hour and a half east of Houston, Texas, along East Galveston Bay. Anahuac NWR protects coastal marshes and prairies that offer habitat to migratory birds, alligators, bobcats and many other species — including the butterflies. The refuge was established in 1963, and is an important link in the chain of refuges extending along the gulf coast of Texas and Louisiana.

Visit the Anahuac NWR website to learn more about the refuge. Also check out the website for the Friends of Anahuac.

And if you’d like to learn more about monarchs, visit the Monarch Watch website.

wildlife, wildlife refuge, conservation, monarch butterflies, Anahuac NWR, Texas