Tracking the 3,000-mile migration of monarchs

‘It’s like a Disney movie, except better.' The fall monarch migration, in which millions of butterflies travel up to 3,000 miles south to California and Mexico, is underway.

By

National News

September 3, 2021 - 9:35 PM

Samantha Goodman, 40, releases a monarch butterfly with her 6-year-old son Torben Goodman outside their home on Sept. 1, 2021, in Chicago. Four weeks ago Samantha collected the egg in a parkway in her neighborhood. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

CHICAGO – Breanna Seibel was riding a four-wheeler alongside her alfalfa field in northern Wisconsin when she started seeing monarch butterflies. The bright orange visitors were swooping, fluttering and dancing in pairs, quartets and trios. They were landing in the trees that line the field, with up to 100 clustered on a single branch.

Seibel called her parents out to see the butterflies: thousands, by her count.

She posted videos on Facebook, and strangers started showing up at her doorstep, asking for a tour.

“It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before,” said Seibel, 28, of New Richmond, Wisconsin. “It’s like a Disney movie, except better.”

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