Ecology professor Art Shapiro of the University of California, who has monitored butterfly populations in Central America for decades, says monarch butterflies are having the best year in California in at least a decade, reports the U-C blog Bug Squad. In a broadcast interview, Shapiro said he’s seen more monarch caterpillars this year than in the preceding several years combined. Another butterfly spotter, Matt Forister of the University of Nevada, says the monarch is booming in the Silver State, too. “Both Shapiro and Forister declared there’s no evidence that the population increase is linked to California’s drought, as some news media outlets have proclaimed. Simply put, the monarch butterflies like warmer conditions, they said.”