A monarch butterfly weighs about as much as one paper clip, or about half a gram. The fact that they weigh so little, yet migrate thousands of miles every year still gives Dr. Karen Oberhauser, a conservation biologist who specializes in monarch butterflies, the chills. Dr. Oberhauser is the director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum, an oasis in the middle of the city. Her current role culminates a career that helped her discover her passion for monarchs and her commitment to habitat conservation. It also convinced her that conservation biology, which requires taking action to address formidable problems, is a science of hope.

A Statistic

Dr. Oberhauser remembers raising monarch butterflies when she was a kid, but she didn’t think about studying them until she was a graduate student. She was interested in the mating systems and reproductive biology of butterflies and moths. Someone suggested she study monarchs, mostly because they’re easy to raise. Also, it was easy to quantify the size of spermatophores, protein rich substances that male monarchs pass to females. She started studying monarchs to answer a very specific scientific question. But over the years her interest in monarchs grew to encompass many aspects of their biology and behavior, and eventually led to a focus on their conservation. 

Dr. Oberhauser was on the forefront of women entering fields of science historically dominated by men. During her graduate studies, there were only three women faculty members in her department, and of those three, only one had children. At the time, the expectation was that you dedicated your life to your scientific work and, if you chose to have kids, there better be someone at home who could take care of them.

Once she completed her Ph.D., Dr. Oberhauser went back to teaching at the University of Minnesota. She had been a high school teacher before graduate school, and she enjoyed it. So she became an adjunct faculty member. Looking back, she realizes she was a statistic, representing the disparity that exists to this day between male and female PhDs; a higher proportion of women than men have less secure adjunct positions versus tenure-track positions. But while being an adjunct faculty didn’t provide job security, it allowed her to spend time with her two daughters and develop conservation and outreach programs–activities that would have been difficult during the early stages of a tenure-track job.

Serendipity

It was a moment of serendipity with one of her daughter’s teachers that led to the creation of Monarchs in the Classroom. Dr. Oberhauser’s research meant that she had a lot of monarch caterpillars at the end of the summer, so she asked her daughter's kindergarten teacher if she wanted some for the students to observe. The teacher was thrilled to receive the caterpillars, and soon other teachers wanted them, too. In 1996, she started offering Minnesota teachers courses on raising monarchs in their classrooms and using them as a vehicle to teach science and conservation. Today, the program attracts teachers from across the U.S., Mexico and Canada. While neither Dr. Oberhauser nor her colleagues advocate raising large numbers of monarchs in captivity because of conservation concerns, the program still focuses on monarchs and has expanded to  schoolyard ecology and conservation more broadly. Monarchs in the Classroom allowed Dr. Oberhauser to put her K-12 teaching experience to use and stay connected to the K-12 community.

Dr. Oberhauser is an advocate of citizen science (also known as participatory science), in which non-scientists take part in organized research.  Back in the 90s, her graduate students recruited people to collect data about the population density of monarchs near them. In addition to the scientific data, her students became interested in the impact collecting ecological data had on the people doing it. They learned that people felt more connected to the land and began to use sustainable methods to care for it. That initial act of engaging citizens in data collection for monarchs grew into what is now known as the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project, a joint project between the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum and the Monarch Joint Venture, where people across the U.S., Mexico and Canada collect data about monarchs in their local communities. 

Holding Their Own For Now

In 2014, a petition was submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to give monarchs legal protection under the Endangered Species Act. After a review, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service gave them the status of “warranted but precluded” meaning they recognized monarchs are in peril, but other species are worse off. Species with that status are re-evaluated regularly. Last year, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) added monarchs to their endangered species list based on specific scientific criteria. While this designation does not come with any legal protections, it helped raise awareness about the stressors on monarchs and their habitat.

Monarchs are holding their own for now. There aren’t as many as there were 20 years ago, but their numbers have been relatively steady over the past decade. However, it is yet to be seen how the extreme weather becoming more common will affect them and their habitat. Dr. Oberhauser says monarchs have a built-in resilience, because their populations are spread out over such a large area. But it is unclear how our changing climate will impact them and their habitat in the long run. When it comes to climate change, Dr. Oberhauser sometimes finds it hard to be hopeful; to her, it feels like human-caused climate change is like a giant experiment with a sample size of one -- the earth. In general, this is a really bad idea. And signs are that the extreme weather we are experiencing is only going to get worse.     

They Just Know

Dr. Oberhauser is in awe of monarchs. They are so light, seem so fragile and are somehow hardwired to make a very long journey without anyone showing them the way. They just know. Monarchs in the eastern migratory population (there is another population west of the Rocky Mountains) are found in southern Canada, the Upper Midwest and the Northeast regions of the U.S. during the late spring and early summer. Those that emerge as adults around August 15th will make the long trip to central Mexico where they will stay until mid-March the following year. At that time, they will start flying northward, to populate the southeastern quarter of the U.S., mating and laying eggs along the way. The offspring of those monarchs will return to their summer breeding grounds, where they will mate and lay their eggs over the course of two to three more generations. Simply amazing!

Dr. Oberhauser describes her career path as circuitous, but it allowed her to raise her two daughters, who are now accomplished in their own professions, and helped her grow her knowledge and passion for monarchs and their habitat. She says if she wasn’t hopeful, she wouldn’t still be doing this work. She loves seeing milkweed growing in random places, like a crack in the sidewalk, that is left alone to provide habitat for monarchs. Her hope is nurtured by professional colleagues and citizen scientists who are doing what they can to support monarchs and preserve their habitat. If hope is about action, then conservation biology really is a science of hope.

Learn More

The University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum

If you are in Madison, Wisconsin, be sure to visit the Arboretum, which is 1,200 acres in the middle of Madison, free and open to the public. It has:

• 17 miles of trails

• Almost ¾ of the shoreline of Lake Wingra

• The world's first restored prairie, which was started in the 1930s

• A five-acre native Wisconsin plant garden and the state’s largest collection of woody plants

Supporting Monarchs

Monarchs need habitat consisting of milkweed, where they lay their eggs and which monarch caterpillars need for food. Monarch butterflies need nectar, and native flowering plants with bloom times spread out through the summer. Here are things you can do to support monarchs and their habitat:

• Create a habitat garden with milkweed and other native plants using sustainable gardening practices, which means no pesticides. Also, monarchs aren’t fussy, they can make the most of a very small garden of milkweed and flowers. Just make sure the plants won’t be disturbed by things like mowing.  

• Become a citizen scientist and join a monarch citizen science program like:

• Monarch Larva Monitoring Project

• Journey North

• Support local conservation organizations.

• Talk with friends and neighbors about conservation. If you have a garden, consider putting up a sign to educate people about what you have in it.

• Think about ways to reduce your carbon footprint, and act on them. That will give you hope!