Charis van der Heide, Monarch Butterfly Biologist
Senior Biologist with Althouse and Meade, Inc.

Charis van der Heide is a research biologist who has been counting, studying, and monitoring the movements of monarch butterflies on the central coast of California for over 20 years. She has a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo where she started researching and tagging monarch butterflies.

She serves as the Santa Barbara County regional coordinator for the Western Monarch Counts for the Xerces Society. She works for Althouse and Meade, Inc as a senior biologist where she designs habitat management plans for monarch butterfly overwintering sites on the central coast of California. She also organized the first study using the new radio tracking tags to observe the movement of monarch butterflies on the central coast.

Questions:
1. What do monarch butterflies need to help their population?
a. They need healthy and native milkweed plants in the spring, summer and early fall.
b. As they migrate in the fall, they need flowering nectar plants to sustain their journey.
c. In the winter, they need a network of protected and suitable overwintering habitat
to roost until spring and winter-flowering nectar sources.
d. In spring, they need early emerging milkweed plants to lay the eggs for the first
generation.

2. What can we do to help overwintering monarchs?

a. If you live near overwintering sites…
i. plant winter-flowering nectar plants.
ii. Cut your milkweed back in December, so new growth is ready for
spring

b. If you live inland and 5 miles or more from the coast…
i. Plant native nectar plants
ii. Plant native milkweed

Website: www.althouseandmeade.com