As the weather warms up into late spring, residents of Tennessee and surrounding states will begin to see monarch butterflies on their journey north to Canada. Those near Oak Ridge may also see Kris Light, who’s dedicated much of her life to the species, driving around town. Her love for the butterfly is as easy to spot as its distinctive orange and black wings, with her SUV proudly displaying a front license plate that reads “monarch.”

“I used to have one that said ‘bug lady.’ The kids call me the bug lady,” she said.

Light, a science educator at the American Museum of Science and Energy, started raising monarchs over 30 years ago, after she found one outside her child’s classroom.

“I was talking to another parent and there’s this plant growing there, and my daughter starts screaming, pointing at something,” she said. “I went, ‘Oh, that’s a monarch butterfly caterpillar.’ So I picked the plant and I took it back to my son’s classroom and knocked on the door and told the teacher I have something you might be interested in.”

As a pollinator, monarch butterflies play an important role in growing our food and plants, and they also serve as a food source for other animals. But populations have dropped in recent decades. According to the World Wildlife Fund, monarch butterflies occupied only 2.2 acres of forest during their winter hibernation in Mexico in 2024, a decrease of 59% from the previous year.

In an effort to stem the decline, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to list the monarchs as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. The agency’s Species Status Assessment from December found the probability of extinction for eastern monarch butterflies by 2080 ranges from 56% to 74%, with western monarch butterflies above 95%

“Any organism that you lose is a loss, which can affect other things down the line,” Light said.

Fish and Wildlife announced the proposal in December but opened a 60-day public comment period in March to help determine which protections should be included. The agency is looking into how the threatened status could affect practices like tagging during migration, raising monarchs in classrooms and spraying pesticides.

“We’re wanting to know whether or not we can improve or modify our approach to the [protections] in any way that would provide greater public participation and understanding of the species, or better accommodate public concerns and comments,” said Kristen Lundh, the Endangered Species Act coordinator for monarch butterflies at Fish and Wildlife.

Monarch butterflies are found in every state but Alaska. One prominent issue they’re facing is habitat loss. A drastic decline in monarch populations could signal problems for other insects.

“I like to think of it actually as more of a bellwether for other species,” Lundh said. “We’re losing habitat that’s critical for monarchs, but also other pollinator species, and so it would be an indication of a larger impact across the country for lots of other species.”

Monarch populations did see an increase in 2025, occupying nearly double the acreage of forest during their hibernation in Mexico compared to 2024. But experts aren’t sure if those numbers will continue to rise.

“All projections about climate for these years tell us that maybe it’s going to be worse in terms of a drop for this year. So potentially, the monarchs are going to have more challenges. Nobody knows, really,” said Eduardo Rendón, who leads the World Wildlife Fund-Mexico’s monarch program.

The public comment period for the proposal to list monarch butterflies as threatened is open until May 19. Fish and Wildlife will then make a final determination.

In the meantime, experts say there are other ways people can help the species.

Every spring, monarch butterflies migrate north to Canada, laying hundreds of eggs along the way. To sustain population growth, they need easy access to milkweeds to lay eggs on and nectaring plants to eat.

Steve McGaffin, the director of the Tennessee Butterfly Monitoring Network at Zoo Knoxville, said planting these can provide support for the monarch butterflies’ monthslong journey.

“They don’t have to be huge. Little habitats in our yard, if enough people are doing that, those habitats can then get connected together,” McGaffin said. “Instead of it being a little island that pollinators can’t really spread from, it becomes a more diverse and spread out habitat over a whole neighborhood or a whole city.”

McGaffin also encouraged people to take part in Fish and Wildlife’s public comment period, noting public participation in species conservation isn’t always possible. But for pollinators, like the monarch butterfly, it can be.

“I’m not going to go to the Malay Peninsula and go save tigers,” he said. “I don’t have that experience, and I don’t have that knowledge, and probably don’t have the money. But I can go into my backyard or in my front yard and plant native plants that will attract pollinators, who provide habitat for pollinators.”

Monarch butterflies are just starting to make their way through states including Tennessee, Kentucky and North Carolina on their path to Canada.

This story was produced by the Appalachia + Mid-South Newsroom, a collaboration between West Virginia Public Broadcasting, WPLN and WUOT in Tennessee, LPM, WEKU, WKMS and WKU in Kentucky and NPR.