Monarch butterflies once turned the eucalyptus grove at Goleta’s Ellwood Mesa a vivid, flickering orange. But this year, like the last, you’d be lucky to catch a single glimpse of orange wings among the greenery.
It is the same story again: These bugs can’t catch a break.
Earlier this month, officials counted just one lonely monarch at Ellwood. Numbers have been so consistently sparse that biologists skipped some scheduled surveys ahead of the final tally.