One of the best-known wintering places is the Monarch Grove Sanctuary, a city-owned site in the coastal city of Pacific Grove, where last year no monarch butterflies showed up. Monarchs from across the West migrate annually to about 100 wintering sites dotting central California’s Pacific coast. The monarchs generally arrive in California at the beginning of November and spread across the country once warmer weather arrives in March. Western monarch butterflies head south from the Pacific Northwest to California each winter, returning to the same places and even the same trees, where they cluster to keep warm. “This is certainly not a recovery but we’re really optimistic and just really glad that there are monarchs here and that gives us a bit of time to work toward recovery of the Western monarch migration,” Jepsen said. This year’s official count started Saturday and will last three weeks but already an unofficial count by researchers and volunteers shows there are over 50,000 monarchs at overwintering sites, said Sarina Jepsen, Director of Endangered Species at Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. RELATED: Migration, interrupted: Monarchs find new rhythms in San Francisco Bay Area
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