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After a journey of about 2,300 km over 40 days, a monarch butterfly has arrived in Mexico from Winnipeg.
How exactly do researchers know? They have marked it.
A team of researchers from the Assiniboine Park Zoo, in collaboration with Environment and Climate Change Canada, began attaching tiny tracking devices to the kings in August.
Laura Burns, conservation program manager at Assiniboine Park Zoo, said the device uses solar power.
“There are two small solar panels and each small tag weighs 0.06 grams. They are solar powered, so they will continue to operate as long as they have access to sunlight and they are connected to cell towers, cell phones and wildlife telemetry towers to track migration,” he said.
Burns said more than 1,300 monarchs have been tagged this fall across North America.
The Assiniboine Zoo marked 29, and they are patiently waiting to see more arriving in Mexico.
Conservation experts in Winnipeg tagged 29 butterflies to find out where they end up during the winter.
Global News
“Some of them are still moving around. There’s a lot in Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas right now,” Burns said. “Some of them will make it to Mexico in the next few days. I hope, if the wind is in their favor.”
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But this journey is dangerous.
“They can hit cars, cities, agricultural fields, predators, bad weather. All of these things can make travel very dangerous, and we don’t know the direct paths they take,” Burns said.
But a butterfly tagged by the Winnipeg Zoo has made it to Mexico, one of three butterflies detected in the country this season.
“It seems like it’s within normal limits, but it was one of the early arrivals in Mexico,” Burns said, adding that the butterfly still had about 800 kilometers to travel before reaching its wintering location.
Tracking butterfly migration also allows researchers to identify what paths they take so they can focus conservation efforts in the area.
“This data will show where the vulnerable points are, where [the butterflies] didn’t make it through. And perhaps we should focus mitigation and conservation efforts at those spots to have the greatest impact,” Burns said.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
