Runners of every pace can lace up for a good cause this month, as the Oklahoma City Zoo and Botanical Garden teams up with Red Coyote Running and Fitness for an evening fun run through the zoo grounds to support monarch butterfly conservation. The event takes place Thursday, August 27 at 6 p.m., sending participants along an approximately 3-mile course through the zoo's 100-acre park. Registration is required online, and the run has capacity for 1,500 participants.
According to The Journal Record, the run is timed to coincide with the start of fall monarch migration through Oklahoma, and proceeds will directly support the zoo's monarch conservation work. That funding stream feeds into several ongoing projects, including a rare milkweed headstart program launched in 2023, in which zoo researchers surveyed remote parts of Oklahoma to collect seeds from imperiled native milkweed species, propagated seedlings in zoo greenhouses, and replanted them in secure habitats, according to Okies for Monarchs. Oklahoma hosts more than 25 native milkweed species considered vital to monarch survival, per the same organization.
Why Oklahoma Matters to a Continent-Spanning Species
Eastern monarch butterflies journey 2,000 to 3,000 miles each autumn along the Central Flyway migratory corridor, relying on Oklahoma's native wildflowers and milkweed as essential refueling stops before wintering in central Mexico, per KGOU. That same reporting notes that eastern migratory populations along Interstate 35 have dropped roughly 80% since the 1990s. The stakes were underscored in February 2024, when the OKC Zoo and Okies for Monarchs reported that the eastern monarch overwintering population in Mexico had dropped 59.3% that season to just 0.90 hectares, the second-lowest level recorded since tracking began in 1994, largely driven by severe fall drought across Oklahoma and Texas, according to the Oklahoma City Free Press.
The decline has drawn federal attention as well. In December 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the monarch butterfly as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act, with protective section 4(d) regulations and a public comment period that ran through May 2025, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The agency has attributed major drivers of the decline to loss of breeding habitat and herbicide exposure.
Community Fitness Meets Conservation Science
Mandy Heaps said organizers are delighted to host Red Coyote's zoo run club and to welcome BOLDT as a partner for the event, calling it a winning event all around, per the Journal Record's reporting. BOLDT has pledged to match the first $5,000 raised. Participants aged 21 and older with ID can sample BOLDT Brew, a Belgian blonde ale from Iron Monk Brewing Company, while runners can also demo footwear for a chance at prize entries.
Red Coyote's Pack Pint Run series has periodically partnered with the OKC Zoo for themed fundraising runs, including Halloween and holiday lights events, since at least 2019, when an earlier zoo run similarly raised funds for monarch conservation. Red Coyote itself carries some retail pedigree in the running world, having been named Best Running Store in the U.S. by Competitor Magazine in 2015 and consistently ranking among the top 50 specialty running retailers nationwide, according to Red Coyote Running and Fitness.
Where the Money Goes
Proceeds from the run help sustain the zoo's Living Classrooms grant program, led by OKC Zoo conservation scientist Dr. Emily Geest, which provides up to $1,500 in funding, curriculum, and native plants to metro-area K-12 schools to establish monarch gardens. The program had served more than 20,000 students across 40 schools as of February 2026, according to 405 Magazine, with participating schools paired with master gardeners. Geest's monarch research has previously drawn attention for documenting unusual butterfly behavior, as Hoodline reported in a piece on her study of the so-called headless butterfly behavior.
The zoo funds some of this work through additional creative channels, including Art Gone Wild, which sells original, non-toxic, washable paintings created by zoo animals ranging in price from $35 to $300, according to the zoo's own YouTube channel. Conservation work also extends into research and tracking: in May 2026, the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation partnered with OKC Zoo scientists to attach solar-powered transmitters to 20 first-generation Oklahoma monarchs to track their northbound spring migration, according to the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation. The zoo has participated in citizen-science monarch tagging efforts for more than 25 years.
Runners interested in joining the August 27 event can register online at runsignup.com/Race/OK/OklahomaCity/OKCZooPackPintRun. The evening run is open to participants of all paces, and organizers are framing the event as both a community social gathering and a direct funding mechanism for statewide pollinator conservation efforts happening just as this year's fall monarch migration gets underway.
