Monarch butterfly numbers rebound in California

Butterflies land on branches at Monarch Grove Sanctuary in Pacific Grove, California (AP)

The population of western monarch butterflies wintering along the California coast has rebounded for a second year in a row after a precipitous drop in 2020 – but the population of orange-and-black insects is still well below what it used to be, researchers said.

Volunteers who visited sites in California and Arizona around Thanksgiving at the end of November tallied more than 330,000 butterflies, the highest number of these insects counted in the last six years.