9,000 butterfly-watchers just set a North American record

For ten summers, the International Monarch Monitoring Blitz has asked ordinary people to spend a week counting butterflies — and this year's tenth anniversary broke every record: more than 9,000 volunteers logged nearly 20,000 observations across Canada, the US and Mexico, documenting over 91,000 milkweed plants and 29,000 monarchs at every life stage. The data feeds real conservation science for an iconic migrant. Proof, once more, that the most powerful scientific instrument can be a crowd of people who care.