In March, 2025 Science published a study documenting butterfly population declines across the United States over twenty years. Authors Edwards et al found that between 2000 and 2020, total butterfly abundance decreased by 22 percent across 554 species. This means for every five butterflies we saw in 2020, we only see four today. And the decline in some places is accelerating. The authors did find some local increases in populations that – over all – are in decline, perhaps pointing to resilience in response to - and the need for - local restoration efforts.
The data came from citizen scientists, including MEEC volunteers who have walked our research transects weekly during the growing season for since 2010. Annually, we send our data to the Ohio Lepidopterists to be aggregated with that of other monitoring programs around the state, and our data was included in the Science study. We estimate that of the 12.6 million individual butterflies in the study, more than 30,000 of them were found at Mount Saint John.
The entire study can be read here. Winter is a great time of year to begin thinking about how we want to manage our individual lawns and gardens for the benefit of the whole. If this idea is new to you, we invite you to register for a one-day native plant symposium co-sponsored by MEEC and Dayton Area Wild ones, Getting Started with Native Plants: Creating a Thriving Habitat at Mount Saint John on February 28. If you'd like an invitation to our volunteer butterfly monitoring training in Spring of 2026, email us.