By Julia Train
On Thursday, Sept. 19, Atlantic Cape Community College hosted Sean Burcher of Project Monarch at its Cape May campus. The filmed event was the first of TEDxCapeMay Salon’s 13th season, titled “New Horizons.”
Burcher, who works for Cellular Tracking Technologies and the Cape May Point Science Center, is working to track monarch butterflies – an endangered species. He has tracked birds, penguins, elephants, seals and sharks, in addition to monarchs.
He started his presentation with “a little monarch biology lesson,” discussing the creature’s annual migration cycle, which Burcher said starts during the spring and summer in Mexico and then the butterflies migrate north to end their journey in Mexico.
“Throughout the spring and summer months, these monarchs will live, mate, die and the cycle repeats. They live as an adult for about three to five weeks and you get about four generations through the spring and summer,” explained Burcher.
Burcher spent the rest of the 30-minute presentation discussing Project Monarch, a high-tech community science effort to track the movements of monarch butterflies along their migration.
The project, which is a collaboration between the Cape May Point Science Center and Cellular Tracking Technologies, focuses on capturing monarchs and attaching tracking devices to them that are the size of a grain of rice.
Burcher said the trackers don’t affect the butterflies’ natural ability to fly. They’re attached with fake eyelash glue and are so small that sometimes even he, someone who knows what he’s looking for, cannot see them on the butterflies. Burcher said the longest time they’ve tracked a butterfly was 21 days.
The devices are transmitted over the same frequency as Bluetooth, which allows cell phones to detect the tagged monarchs.
With the help of community members, the project has the potential to create the world’s largest wildlife tracking network. All users need to do to help is go outside, look for monarch butterflies and use the app.
The app is set up like a game, similar to Pokémon GO. While it’s open in the foreground, it can pick up the signal of any butterfly with a tracker on it and log it in the project’s database.
According to Project Monarch’s website, “This data will allow scientists to track the movements of monarch butterflies in detail never previously imagined. We will see how monarchs utilize key stopping points along migratory routes and learn more about the speed and direction of migration, helping identify the most important sites for habitat conservation and restoration. Ultimately, this technology can help guide conservation planning and lead to increases in monarch populations.”
In order to be chosen for the spot at the TEDx event, there was an application and audition process. Among many applicants, Burcher was chosen.
“He worked for the Cape May Point Science Center so he was a natural fit for this,” said Krista McConnell, director of campus and community outreach. “TED likes to feature speakers that have ideas worth spreading and we thought this was very unique to Cape May County and certainly an idea worth spreading.”
This event preempted the main TEDx event, which will also be filmed, on Oct. 6 at Cape May Convention Hall. The event will feature nine presentations and go from 1:30 p.m. to 6 p.m.
