The Lawrence Journal-World reports that 617 participants showed up Saturday to help at the annual Monarch Watch project at the Baker Wetlands south of Lawrence.
Insect ecologist Chip Taylor says the number surpassed the previous volunteer high of 551 at the previous tagging site near Clinton Lake.
Taylor is the founder of the University of Kansas’ Monarch Watch. He says the small tags being used have an adhesive used to bond it to the butterflies’ wings for life.
Each has a six-character number/letter combination that will be added to a national database. In the last 24 years, 1.2 million tag numbers have been entered into the database.