RICK MIKULA MONARCH HISTORY
I have been studying this for a long time and it will start a lot of controversy, but both the western and eastern monarch migrations were allowed to happen through human intervention and did not go on for thousands of years as some people misconceive to be true. There were no records of monarchs over wintering in California prior to the California gold rush. The early Spanish explorers always had Jesuit priests with them who kept meticulous records of the flora and fauna they found on their journeys; it was part of the reason they were there. Never was the Monarch butterfly mentioned in their notes. Once the Gold rush started the demand for lumber skyrocketed and the forest were clear. Once the native trees were gone Australian Eucalyptus was introduced because it grew quickly and could supply the urgent need for more timber. The clearing of the forest allowed the monarch ingress into California where they actually enjoyed the introduction of Eucalyptus because it was easy to cling to in bad weather and the shape of the leaves captured water for an early morning drink. In many places where “It must be a native plant, or it goes people” removed the Eucalyptus eventually lost their monarch colonies as well.
Carl Linnaeus described monarchs for the first time in 1758, in his book Systema Naturae. His specimens did come from Pennsylvania, but they were not mine because I did not start to raise until a few years later. Sorry I just had to throw a little bit of humor into this. Prior to human expansion the dense forest in northeastern US were not conducive to nurturing great numbers of monarchs. It was until the Eastern and mid-west states were cleared for farming that milkweed was able to execute its own manifest destiny and start its journey northward that allow the monarchs to follow. A mass migration of monarchs prior to the 17th or 18th century would seem improbable due to the existing habitat.
I hate to burst the bubble of those who are blinded by the romanticism of such a magical creature, but reality needs to raise its head. Now you did not hear this from me BUT there is a good chance that monarch migration in the US was caused and is slowly being eliminated by human intervention and climate change. To take a lesson from the Canadian Geese why migrate if you do not need to? Which would answer the question as to why so many US monarch overwintering site are being discovered.
