MARIPOSA — Every year, researchers and citizen scientists gather at known locations in the monarch migration pattern to count the monarch adults as well as the eggs and cats found on native milkweed. You may think the release of monarchs would be a tremendous boon to the declining global population of this bright and colorful species. This is far from ...

YOSEMITE — Highway 140 between Crane Creek and Parkline in El Portal has become thick with thousands of California tortoiseshell butterflies, say officials in Yosemite National Park. This species emerges in spectacular numbers in some years and is thought to be the source of Mariposa County’s name, which is Spanish for butterfly. This particular corridor where butterflies converge can become a killing ...

By C. Lee-Roney, NPS YOSEMITE — Highway 140 between Crane Creek and Parkline has become a killing zone for thousands of California tortoiseshell butterflies. This species emerges in spectacular numbers in some years (last in 2010), and is thought to be the source of Mariposa County’s name, which is Spanish for butterfly. Please help minimize the number of butterflies killed by ...