The Monarch Butterfly tagging event held over the weekend at Dinosaur National Monument hosted 66 community members in a delicate and important process. Antonio, the Science Communication and Resource Monitoring Intern at Dinosaur, shared that it was an amazing experience seeing children and adults getting excited about monarchs as he taught them the process of tagging and data collection. “At the public tagging day, I was able to help guide people to the resources that would allow them to be a part of the ongoing science,” shares Antonio. “Such avenues include Southwest Monarch Study, where they can actually get tags to mark monarchs by themselves. My favorite part of the day was allowing visitors to release a monarch and watching their big smile as it flew away from their hand, in an instant.” The tagging event was a collaboration between the BLM, DWR, Forest Service, Natural Resources Conservation Service, and National Park Service.
A group of enthusiastic visitors watch a newly tagged monarch fly straight up off the hand of a young helper.
