Come out for an enjoyable day on a monitoring hike with Friends of Nevada Wilderness. We will be searching for milkweed, monarchs, campsites, invasive species, trail maintenance and signing needs while counting numbers of visitors and dogs on the trail. We will be meeting at the Whites Creek Trail head left off of Timberline Dr and hiking the Whites Canyon.
Monarch Butterflies are not only beautiful but serve an essential purpose of pollination. Threats to monarchs are becoming more severe and include: breeding habitat loss, pesticide use, climate change, parasites, pathogens, and non native host plants. The milkweed plant is a critical part of the monarch butterfly's life cycle.
Documenting monarch migration and milkweed sites is used to understand population size of monarchs and how we can help them survive, however documentation in Nevada is extremely underrepresented due to lack of data collection.Help us add data to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation in partnership with Nevada Bugs and Butterflies, to help develop a better understanding of monarch migration in Nevada. Your monitoring efforts will also support the Carson Ranger District in their ongoing stewardship efforts. All training and tools necessary will be provided.
We will be hiking around 5 miles round trip so please be prepared with a day pack with at least 2 liters of water, food and sunscreen. Link to trailhead