Monarch Way Station
Monarch Butterflies have been seen is the Hays area for several weeks, however they are showing up in numbers as the migrate down to Mexico for the winter.
KSU Cottonwood District Master Gardeners in conjunction with Monarch Watch tagged 25 Monarch Butterflies on 9/28/2026. Butterflies were tagged at the Pollinator Garden located at the KSU Ag Research Center and a private residence. Data collected was as follows. date, sex, origin (reared or wild) wing length and city where tagged. Out of the 25 butterflies tagged, 13 were males and 12 were females. Data will be entered to the Monarch Watch online database.
The Monarch Watch Tagging Program is a large-scale community science project that was initiated in 1992 to help understand the dynamics of the monarch's spectacular fall migration through mark and recapture. This year was a practice in tagging, and in Fall of 2027 Master Gardeners plan to offer a public tagging event.
https://monarchwatch.org/tagging/