- I'm Natasha Hadden and I'm a wildlife biologist on the Ashley National Forest here in Vernal, Utah.

So today we are catching monarchs and we will be placing tags on monarch butterflies.

We hope that other people will see the tags along their migration route and report it so that we can figure out where they're migrating, what habitat they're using while they're migrating and where they migrate to.

So we've tagged about 1300 monarchs over the last five years and we've had three recoveries.

You have to tag a lot of monarchs to even have one recovery.

So two of 'em were actually in California near San Luis Obispo.

The ones to California were over 700 miles.

And then the one to the Colorado River was 111 miles and that one was re-sighted in let's see, four days after we tagged it.

So that was pretty neat to see how far it flew in four days.

We were so excited because we've put so much effort into tagging these monarchs to gain information and when we got the data back, it was like, yes.

We all come out here earlier in the morning, usually around 7:30 or 8:00, and we take the net and you're sneaking up on the monarch as it's landed or nectaring on the milkweed and put the net over the top of it and then we take 'em out and put 'em in the cage.

Some people can get 'em out of the air if they're really good.

So we do that for several hours and then we'll bring them back here in the shade.

So once we have the monarch in hand, we have a small little sticker and the sticker has a unique ID on it.

And then also information for who to contact if you do re-sight a tagged monarch.

So we are placing the tag on this hind wing and this area is called the discal cell.

It looks like a little mitten, so I'll hold the tag on the discal cell for about five seconds.

The heat from my fingers helps the sticker adhere to the wing.

We will write down that tag.

So CT-425.

So currently we're standing on the McConkie Ranch and the family is here and they have taken care of this area for generations.

And this here is one of the monarch meccas of Northeastern Utah.

There's quite a few monarchs that utilize this area.

Depending on the year, but can be from mid-June to about mid-October.

And this habitat is very supportive of pollinators, especially monarchs because it grows the milkweed and also the flowers that they need during migration and when they're breeding in the area.

So now we will look at whether this is a male or a female.

So this one's a male because it has two dots on the bottom hind wing.

The black spots are the scent glands and it's veins are thinner as well.

So we have a female, there are no black dots on the hind wing and her veins are thicker.

We're on the eastern pocket of the western portion of the population.

So most of the western portion of the population migrates to California.

However, we think that some of them may go to Mexico as well, but we need more information.

Last year we tried out new technology.

They're called CTT BluMorpho Tags.

And it's a teeny tiny solar panel that we glue to the back of the monarch and anybody can download.

It's called Project Monarch app.

It sends off a Bluetooth signal and anybody can pick it up.

If they're scanning and the Monarch is in the area, depending on like topography and weather, it can potentially detect that CTT BluMorpho Tag up to a fourth of a mile away.

And we're gonna put out 11 this fall.

And we're hoping to spread the word across Utah and the Western states to citizen scientists to download that app so that more people are scanning and we have a higher chance of collecting that data.

(bright music)