Maybe the cost of housing is keeping them away.
Volunteers and officials with the Pacific Grove Museum of Natural History recently counted 11,000, down from 18,000 this time last year. That count seems to buck a coastal trend, although not all the counts are in.
Sarina Jepsen, the director of the Xerces Society’s endangered species program, said that from the 145 sites counted so far, the monarch count actually seems to be up from last year. Jepsen’s program aims to raise awareness about the plight of invertebrates that are declining.