Southern researchers ask public for help finding monarch butterflies in winter

One of the world’s great animal migrations takes place on the wing over the eastern half of North America each fall, when millions of monarch butterflies fly to Mexico’s Sierra Madre Mountains.

But some monarchs appear to cut that trip short, spending the winter in the southern U.S., instead.

Now, as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to protect monarchs as a threatened species, researchers and butterfly advocates are trying to learn more about monarchs in winter — and they’re asking for help from the public in Southern states.