This Idaho City Has Garnered a Butterfly Title

Here's a fact I had no idea was a real thing: since 1990, nearly 1 billion monarch butterflies have vanished.

1 billion!? This is an estimate published by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service in 2015. Since then, the decline in Monarch butterflies has continued.

As you may remember vaguely from some science lesson in elementary school or junior high, monarchs work pretty hard each year to migrate and survive and they do so in giant groups. Monarchs in our area will fly all the way to Mexico or Southern California just to avoid the winter. Their journey is pretty unreal and if you've ever seen a video of the mass migration, it looks like a swarm of birds!

An Idaho city (with a population of just over 6,000 people) has been named Idaho's first Monarch City. The title was given by a non-profit organization that works to encourage cities to plant milkweed and nectar plants (both of which fuel the butterfly on their journey south).

If you can believe it, since it is estimated over 1 million monarchs hibernate from our area--there's a high probability that Rathdrum, Idaho will host more butterflies, than people this year alone!