The Ellwood Grove Was Rebuilt for Monarchs That Haven't Come Back Yet

Last December, a biologist walked through the Goleta Butterfly Grove holding up her phone. In the Santa Barbara Independent's account, Charis van der Heide of Althouse and Meade opened the Project Monarch Science app and saw that a monarch named Angela was close by. A few seconds later Angela flew past.

At that point Angela was one of five monarchs at Ellwood carrying a solar-powered radio tag. Each tag weighs 60 milligrams and costs $200. The November count across all of Ellwood Mesa that year came to nine butterflies. So the grove you walk into this fall has new trails, new drainage and hundreds of new trees, all designed for a population that is not there yet. The City is betting that the monarchs come back, and that bet has worked once before.

What Changed Underfoot Since Your Last Winter Walk

If you haven't walked the main grove in a couple of seasons, you will notice the paths before anything else. In a March 2025 update, the City's Monarch Press said the viewing-area trails in the main grove had been rerouted to improve accessibility, cut down on erosion and keep foot traffic off tree roots. The City's Ellwood timeline also lists better drainage, a temporary footbridge, and ongoing planting and plant care for 2025. Restoration and vegetation management are listed as continuing through 2026.

The new work got a real test last November, when about 9 inches of rain fell on the area over seven days. According to the City's year-end report, the Santa Barbara Shores culvert came through undamaged and the drainage pools below the main viewing area slowed and held water the way they were designed to. The new trails were also safer in the mud than the old ones.

Much of the forest work happens out of sight. From May through October 2025, crews covered 60 acres, chipping dead and downed wood, clearing low-hanging branches and non-native shrubs, and taking down standing trees judged high risk. Volunteers took on the planting. The City counted more than 1,000 sign-ins over 29 work days in 2025, with more than 550 trees and 2,500 plants put in the ground. The 2026 volunteer season, run by the City of Goleta, Ellwood Friends and the Santa Barbara Bucket Brigade, held work days from February through May.

The City's restoration plan still lists more projects, including an elevated boardwalk to replace the ground-level one and upgrades to two viewing areas. Treat those as planned for now. The visitor page still describes the paths as natural and rough in places.

The Count That Explains Why All This Work Matters

The City's biological consultants count monarchs every two weeks during the season. Each season is summarized by its maximum, meaning the most monarchs seen on any single day. Recent seasons look like this:

The Independent reported that the 2025–26 peak of 20 came in October and that some earlier seasons had topped 20,000. By the end of the season, van der Heide's update put the total count at Ellwood at two butterflies. She tied that to two things. Mortality runs higher in low years because the monarchs lose the protection of large numbers, and it runs higher again after heavy storms like the ones that had just come through.

The table also shows why the City keeps investing. The worst season on the chart, 2020–21, came right before three seasons in the tens of thousands. Of everything in Ellwood's recent history, that turnaround is the main reason the planting and trail work is more than a gesture.

Ellwood is not an outlier. The Xerces Society's Western Monarch Count found about 12,260 monarchs at 249 sites statewide in the late-2025 mid-season count. Ellwood's share was 29, spread across nine sites. Xerces's figure is higher than the City's 20 because the two surveys count on different dates and cover different sites. By January 11, 2026, the statewide tally had dropped to 6,464 at 193 sites. Xerces called a late-season decline like that typical. It also said very small populations are more exposed to habitat loss, pesticides and extreme weather. Over the longer term, the western migratory population is down about 95 percent since the 1980s.

A Thin Year Changes Where the Butterflies Sit

The low numbers also change how the grove looks on a visit. When the population is small, the clusters many locals remember can break up entirely. In the City's February Monarch Press update, van der Heide explained why:

"Monarch butterflies can use visual cues from other roosting monarchs to locate roosting areas. When there are few monarchs roosting, this behavior of following the leader can break down and individual monarchs are on their own to find good places to roost."

She added that the official surveys follow Xerces methods and might miss a few monarchs roosting outside the known overwintering spots, though "not likely more than a handful." So in a low year, a monarch you see on the mesa could be one of the few the survey never counted. That gives the tagged butterflies more weight. In the same update, the City encouraged visitors to look for tagged monarchs in the Project Monarch app. The app, built by Cellular Tracking Technologies, is free. Van der Heide told the Independent the tag data could show things like a favorite nectar spot, which would tell the City where to plant more.

Washington Set a Date While Goleta Kept Planting

This week there is also federal news. On October 15, the Santa Barbara Independent reported that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed the monarch as a threatened species in December 2024 but never finalized the listing. The Center for Biological Diversity and the Center for Food Safety sued. On September 30, the agency agreed to make a final listing decision by June 6, 2030. The service's own species page still describes protection as proposed.

That puts any federal decision almost four years out, so for now the work on the mesa is all local. The same Independent article points to the restoration at Ellwood and the radio tagging as the efforts already underway on the ground.

Reading This Season From the Trailhead

The overwintering season runs from October through February. In a normal year the Ellwood population peaks in mid-to-late December, and the monarchs are gone by mid-March. The City said it would post its 2026–27 biweekly count chart in early October. As of mid-October the page still showed a placeholder, so check the City's Goleta Butterfly Grove page before you head out to see whether the first 2026–27 counts have been posted.

Here is how a fall visit works, according to the City's own visitor page:

1. Park for free at the Ellwood Mesa Open Space and Sperling Preserve lot, 7729 Hollister Avenue, across from Ellwood Elementary School. MTD Line 25 stops at Viajero on Hollister, close to the lot.
2. Follow the butterfly trail markers for a little over half a mile, or about 15 minutes, to the main viewing area. A portable restroom is at the lot.
3. Time the visit around the weather. Monarchs stay clustered in the morning and on cool days, and they fly and puddle in the afternoon and on warm days.
4. Plan around 8 a.m. if you walk early. The page says sunrise to sunset in one place and 8 a.m. to sunset in its FAQ.
5. Keep dogs leashed, stay on designated trails and out of roped areas, and skip the grove when it's raining or the ground is muddy from a recent storm.

Binoculars help in any year, and the City recommends them. The docent program is being revitalized, and the City hasn't posted guided-walk dates for this winter.

You can also help from home. Van der Heide suggests planting winter-flowering nectar plants to feed monarchs through the winter and native milkweed in spring for the breeding season. The City notes that monarchs at Ellwood feed on flowering eucalyptus as well as native plants and home gardens nearby.

Pollero Partners follows Ellwood's seasons through the City's biweekly counts and winter walks on the mesa. If you'd like to talk about life near the open space, or about homes within walking distance of the Hollister trailhead, Nico Pollero is happy to set up a private consultation and share pocket listings in Goleta.