Winners and Losers: Butterfly Fauna at BCCER, post-2024 Park Fire
August 20, 2026
7:00 – 8:00 PM (Via Zoom)
Don Miller
California State University, Chico
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://csuchico.zoom.us/meeting/register/vbxu2601Qh2T8m-FLyKCug
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Caption: Mourning Cloak (Nymphalis antiopa) visiting butterfly counter Lisa Sorensen
Photo by Clara Buchholtz 2018
The North American Butterfly Association (NABA) sponsors annual butterfly counts, with the long-term goal of tracking butterfly populations as an index of environmental quality. In June 2026, along with the staff of the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve and volunteers, I completed our 20th annual sanctioned Butterfly Count. This was the second such count following the July 2024 Park Fire in which 95% of the Reserve burned, and it has yielded some distinct patterns in species abundance and composition, doubtless tied to massive changes in vegetation. In this talk I will summarize these trends, highlighting species apparently benefiting from the fire, as well as those suffering declines.
Don Miller inspecting Arctostaphylos luciana (Santa Lucia manzanita) at Cuesta Ridge Botanical Special Interest Area, San Luis Obispo County, May 2021
Photo by Dave Keil
A native of Syracuse, New York, Don Miller was introduced to Monarch butterflies during their Fall 1966 migration, when Don was in kindergarten. His interest in butterflies and other insects has never flagged. Don earned a bachelor’s degree in Forest Biology from the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, where the names of many North American trees were drilled into him. He then earned a Master’s degree in Biological Anthropology at Oxford before completing a Ph.D. in Entomology at U.C. Berkeley with Wayne Getz (Environmental Science, Policy & Management). In 2002, Don accepted the entomology position in Biological Sciences at California State University, Chico, formerly held by David Kistner. For the last 25 years, Don has avidly pursued research into the ecology and evolution of Tamalia gall aphids on manzanitas while maintaining a keen interest in the Lepidoptera. Every June Don conducts a survey of local butterflies in Chico for the North American Butterfly Association. The survey, which is open to all, provides important information on population trends of our butterflies and their increasingly threatened habitats.