The Monarch Program
450 Ocean View Ave.
Encinitas, CA
(760) 944-7113
More info: website
The Monarch Program was created in 1990 to foster a growing interest in monarch butterflies. The Monarch Program studies the butterfly's unique behavior and follows its migration patterns to the coast of California and to the Transverse Neovolcanic Belt of Mountains west of Mexico City.
The Monarch Program also conducts classroom field trips in its museum, cultivates plants in a greenhouse, rears butterfly livestock, and hold special events. Our programs in the field include monitoring overwintering habitats, tracking tagged monarchs, monitoring spring and summer milkweed colonies, and studying butterfly species and their host plants.
Monarch Program Facilities
The Butterfly Vivarium is an outdoor butterfly house. The enclosure is a netted and plastic structure (1,200 sq. ft.) with redwood chip pathways, ponds, water falls, several eucalyptus and ficus trees, numerous flowering nectar plants, and butterfly host plants. The Vivarium serves as an eco-biosphere for native butterflies.
The greenhouse, next to the Butterfly Vivarium, grows thousands of milkweed plants, and hundreds of host plants for other butterfly species, and some flowering nectar plants.
During the weekdays from April through November the Monarch Program sponsors field trips. In the summer, it is open to the public on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. When the public visits, the Monarch Program has interpretative specialists to answer questions, show videos, and give brief guided tours.
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