Researchers and citizen scientists will tag 10,000 bogong moths to track their hundreds-kilometre migration from the Australian Alps to breeding grounds across southeast Australia. This large tagging project is inspired by monarch butterfly tracking in North America. Next week, a team will visit Mt Kosciuszko to attach tiny paper tags the size of confetti to the moths’ wings using eyelash glue. Dr Kate Umbers, managing director of Invertebrates Australia, said, "It’s low-tech, high-effort tagging, where you put a little sticker on an individual moth and see if you can catch it again." This is the first time such tagging has been done on bogong moths. The project aims to fill knowledge gaps on where bogong moths breed and the routes they take, information important because the moth is listed as endangered globally. Genetic and chemical tests help but tagging is the only way to confirm the moths’ movement from one point to another, Umbers said. The small moths, about the size of a bottle cap, are cooled and temporarily anaesthetised with carbon dioxide before tagging. Researchers are confident the tags won’t harm or affect the moths’ behaviour. Twenty volunteers will split the work over 10 days to reach the goal of tagging 10,000 moths. More than 50 households around Mt Kosciuszko will act as “sentinels” from March to May, using bug lanterns to monitor tagged moths. Louise Freckelton from a sheep farm in NSW said, "We know the perils for [the moths] and the pygmy possums. We live in both a climate and an extinction crisis, and this is a tiny way we can help." Suzanne Newnham near Canberra added, "If we put a light on outside, we have so many moths it’s not funny. I thought it’d be interesting to be able to track them." The public is encouraged to spot tagged moths, note their two-letter, two-number code, take photos, and report them via bogong.org. Umbers stressed, "We need eyes out, all over, all of the time." Even one resighting would be valuable, and "If we saw 100 of our tagged moths again, it would be an amazing success."