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Scientists are encouraging people to plant monarch butterfly habitat as researchers observe positive trends in monarch populations.

Each year, scientists in Mexico measure the number of acres monarch butterflies occupy. Last year, monarchs lived through the winter season on more than seven acres of land, up from just 4.4 acres the year before, which is the second year of population growth for monarch butterflies since the species registered its second-lowest population numbers in 2023.

Kristen Baum, director of the nonprofit Monarch Watch, said insect populations can fluctuate, especially given the breeding habits of monarchs, which lay many eggs with an individually low survival rate.

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"Populations do fluctuate a lot from year to year," Baum explained. "If you think about the typical strategy, you lay a bunch of eggs and you hope a few make it. So they’re investing very little, focusing more on numbers, rather than investing a lot in a single offspring."

Since the 1980s, monarch butterfly populations have declined by more than 80 percent. Monarch butterflies weigh less than a paper clip and can travel more than 3,000 miles during their migration.

Baum encouraged people who want to help monarchs to plant pollinator gardens, with plenty of milkweed, the only plant monarch caterpillars eat. But she cautioned monarchs typically only lay one egg per milkweed plant, so when habitat is plentiful, fewer monarchs might be seen at a given waystation.

"I know everybody’s always disappointed when they don’t see Monarch activity," Baum observed. "If we get enough habitat out there, ideally you actually wouldn’t see as much activity because there’d be so much habitat that they don’t necessarily have only your waystation to go to."

Of more than 55,000 registered monarch waystations across the country, there are more than 1,300 registered in North Carolina alone.