60 Minutes - 07/19/2026: Healing Justice, Flight of the Monarchs

Episode Date: July 20, 2026

It’s rare for 60 MINUTES to follow a story for 15 years, but Lesley Stahl reports on Jennifer Thompson, a rape victim who learned years after her attack that an innocent man had been sent to prison, a story Stahl covered in 2009. In this era of DNA exonerations, Thompson has come to believe that crime victims are forgotten, and even blamed, when the justice system gets it wrong. She has created Healing Justice, an organization that brings together the wrongfully convicted, crime victims and family members for multi-day intensive retreats and invites 60 MINUTES to come along as they share their stories and move together on a path of healing. This is a double-length segment. Shari Finkelstein is the producer.One of the most awe-inspiring and mysterious migrations in the natural world is currently taking place, stretching from Mexico to the United States and Canada. This incredible spectacle involves millions of monarch butterflies embarking on a monumental aerial journey. Correspondent Anderson Cooper reports from the mountains of Mexico, where the monarchs spent the winter months sheltering in trees before emerging from their slumber to take flight. Denise Schrier Cetta is the producer.

Good job. It's rare for 60 minutes to follow a story for 17 years. But tonight, you'll be reintroduced to Jennifer Thompson, a rape victim who mistakenly identified an innocent man who was sent to prison. And then I'm going to tie my string. Jennifer has created something called Healing Justice, a program that brings together crime victims, family members, and innocent men. Dear Chris, you failed in life.

Why did you confess? I will never confess. Why can't you just be quiet? You are an angry black man. You will never know love. You will always be a prisoner. It's not easy to get to, and it's not easy to see at first. But then, one of the most amazing migration stories in nature reveals itself. Towers of monarch butterflies.

Orange, twisting, soaring, and one of the most remote things we've ever seen. I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm John Worthheim. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Bill Whitaker. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. 17 years ago, we reported on a woman named Jennifer Thompson,

a rape victim who was devastated to learn years after her assault, that she and the police had identified an innocent man who was convicted and sent to prison while the actual rapist had gone on to attack several more women. It's not an uncommon story in this era of DNA exonerations, and Jennifer Thompson has tried for years to do something about it. Thompson knows firsthand that wrongful conviction scar not just the unjustly convicted, but also the original crime victims who are often overlooked. So, as we first reported in 2024, she's doing something no one else has tried, and perhaps only she could pull off, bringing together crime victims and innocent men

from different cases for what she calls healing justice. What I'm going to ask you to do is turn your bowl upside down. What we saw on day one of a multi-day group retreat Jennifer Thompson is leading sure didn't look like healing. Ten men and women, plus an observer. nice job Leslie smashing bowls with a hammer nice what I'm going to ask you to do now is I'm going to ask you to repair it it was quite something to realize that gluing pieces back together at one table

were two women who had been raped at the ages of 15 and 12 sitting across from two men who in unrelated cases had been wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting children and had each spent more than two decades in prison. Anyone need a little blob of glue? At the next table, another woman who survived a sexual assault, sitting beside a man exonerated for rape and murder. And at our table, the partner and daughter of a murder victim.

Everyone here part of a case where the wrong man was sent to prison for years and years. You have said that wrongful convictions aren't a single bullet. You said they're bombs. A wrongful conviction doesn't hurt like a person. It's not just Raymond Taller got hurt. Like his whole family got shrapnel. And the victims got shrapnel. And the community received shrapnel

because a child molester was still in the community. There's just so many people in a wrongful conviction. I think it's hundreds of people for every single wrongful conviction case that are hurt. Jennifer Thompson was one of them. She was a college student in 1984 when a man broke into her off-campus apartment

and raped her at knife point. Jennifer worked with police to create a composite sketch, then identified a man named Ronald Cotton in the photo and physical lineups police showed her. Jennifer testified in court against Ronald Cotton and was relieved when he received a life-sale. But after 11 years in prison, DNA testing proved Cotton's innocence and identified the actual rapist whose photo had not been in the lineup. Ronald Cotton was exonerated and Jennifer was wracked with guilt, as she told us in 2009.

Shame? Shame. Terrible shame. Suffocating debiless. Shellitating shame. Jennifer turned that shame into action. She apologized to Ronald Cotton in person and then started speaking around the country to police and prosecutors, sometimes together with Cotton, about how to make wrongful convictions less likely.

But over the years, as exonerations of the innocent have multiplied, finally we freed. With more than 3,800 freed so far, I'm free! Based on new evidence, including DNA, Jennifer began focusing in on what was being overlooked. What do you think most people feel and see when they see an innocent man come out of prison? It's the day that that man or woman who's wrongfully incarcerated and their families are rejoicing.

I know you didn't do it. I know. It's the day they've been dreaming about. They've prayed for it. They're on the court steps and their arms are raised high and it's a day of celebration, but for the crime victims, for the murder victim family members, they're sitting back here saying, hey, hold up a second. This is another nightmare on top of a nightmare.

The victims have been forgotten. Victim, she says, like Tamisia Carrington artist, who was 12 years old when a man broke into her bedroom and raped her. He grabbed me by my throat and put a knife to my throat and said if I screamed, he was going to kill me and my mom. Grab me from behind, put me in a chokehold. Penny Bernson, sexually assaulted at age 36 as she went for an afternoon run along the shore of Lake Michigan.

And he said, now I'm going to kill you. Now you're going to die. And Loretta Zillinger White, who was raped at age 15 on the way to school one morning, after she'd missed her bus. It's hard. People expect you to just put it behind you and not think about it again. And they don't realize that it's going to affect you

for the rest of your life. All these women, like Jennifer, had identified a suspect the police showed them only to learn years later that those men were innocent, and they were gripped by a whole new nightmare. I felt so bad for four years. for him because I felt like I sent this man to prison. That's all I could think about.

I got scared. I felt like that he was going to try to come out and kill me. I just, I shut down. Did people blame you? Oh, absolutely. The first time I went out in public, a friend came up to me and said, I can't believe you're showing your face.

They were saying that I needed to go to prison. That you needed to? Yes. That I intentionally sent the wrong man to prison. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, it was bad. Yeah. Memory experts have long understood how crime victims can get it wrong.

In our earlier story about Jennifer's case, Professor Gary Welle showed us a simulated crime scene and then a lineup. You know now, after we've talked, probably not to pick anyone. No, no, actually. I actually know who it is because if... If I had come upon that, I think it's this guy. Am I wrong? Am I wrong?

Yeah. I'm wrong? Yeah. It's none of them. Studies have shown again and again when the actual perpetrator is not in the lineup. Witnesses often pick the wrong man who then comes to replace the original offender in their memory of the crime. In Jennifer's case, and to Misha and Pennies, the real perpetrators, revealed by DNA years later, had not been in the original lineups.

20 years later, when they come to me and say, by the way, I can't imagine. The person who raped you never went to prison. And the person we thought is innocent. See ya. And oh, by the way, it's all your fault. It's not the system's fault.

I mean, here was my narrative. Rape victim falsely accuses an innocent man and sent him to prison. Everything's wrong with that, because a false accusation denotes a lie. Delivered. Why would a crime survivor, why would a victim want the wrong person to go to prison?

That doesn't make any sense at all. You know, when you hear what you're saying, then we get it, but we don't hear it. As you said, there's a blazing headline. Man is freed. A person who fingered him got it wrong. That's it. And the system now doesn't get held accountable for how it failed me, and it failed my family,

and it failed the innocent person, it failed the innocent person's family, and it failed everybody. That failure, Jennifer told us, is also devastating for families of murder victims, even when they played no role themselves in identifying the wrongfully convicted person. That's what happened to Andrea Harrison and her father, Wayne Jones. Andrea's mother, Jacqueline, was raped and murdered in 1987 when Andrea was just three years old. It was one of the most horrendous crimes. She was brutally raped, tortured. Someone found her body, walking their dog. A local man named Larry Peterson spent more than 17 years in prison for the crime before DNA testing proved his innocence, and he was released.

Did you know that he was going to be released? Did they tell you? No. No. No. For many, many years, someone was tried, convicted, and put away. Yes, ma'am. And then you find out that the DNA doesn't match.

I mean, you go back into flight or flight. Yeah. You got scared. Absolutely. Absolutely we did. Can you tell us of what? Who the person, who hurt my mother? What happened to Jackie?

Who did it? Whoever that person is, they're still out there. But since Larry Peterson's exoneration, with the case now cold, they feel the original crime and victim have become an afterthought. It's always been, what do you think about Mr. Peterson? That is not my charge. I care about Jackie. I'm worried about Jackie.

What about Jackie? But even while victims and their families are left reeling in the wake of wrongful convictions, Jennifer knows from her friendship with Ronald Cotton and her work with other exoneries. That heady, blissful first day of freedom is just the start of a tough, years-long struggle to rebuild. Raymond Towler, exonerated after 29 years in prison, 29 years, plays in a band with other exoneries

and says he struggles with the lingering stigma and hurt of being charged with such a heinous crime. Tell us if it's not too painful what the crime was. It's painful. I know. I'm sorry. I'm laughing over it, but it is painful. But it was rape of 11- and 12-year-old kids. When DNA testing finally proved Toller's innocence and won his freedom,

he says it was thrilling, but also daunting. The adjustment was difficult. Yeah. I couldn't even really go out the door by myself. You don't feel like you fit in anywhere. At least I did. Exanari's stories are often filled with egregious police and prosecutorial misconduct. In Chris Ochoa's case, abusive interrogations that led to a false confession to rape and murder. For Howard Dudley, evidence withheld by prosecutors that likely would have cleared him of child sexual abuse.

for which he served more than 23 years. I always dream of being that with my kids. See the football game, see them on the basketball court. Didn't get a chance to see none of that. So I would like for everybody to introduce themselves. So Jennifer came up with a novel idea. So I am Jennifer Thompson. I am a victim survivor.

My name is Raymond. Raymond Tauner. I'm Exxana Reid. My name is Loretta. She started an organization called Healing Judging that brings together exonerese, My name is Chris. I'm exonerese.

And crime victims. My name is Penny. All from different cases. I am Tamisia. As well as family members. My brother was an exonerate. My name is Andrea. Healing justice paid to bring them from around the country

to this rented retreat center in Virginia where they will spend three days sharing stories, playing games, playing games, and eating all their meals together. This is the 17th retreat healing justice has done. How effective is it when it's not the same crime? Very effective. There's something powerful in healing when an exonery can hear

what the victim in their case must have felt like. And for crime survivors, it's really healing to also hear about the experiences of exoneries. The biggest thing I lost was trust. Three days of emotional release, rebuilding trust, and healing when we come back. Hey, it's Jen Hatmaker. Here's what I've learned in midlife. Joy isn't the reward you earn after all the work is done.

Joy is the work. That's what this new series on For the Love is all about. The sacred, yes. It's choosing delight, rest, and pleasure on purpose. Because saying yes to yourself, that's the thing that finally lets you fill your table with everybody else. Come find your sacred yes with me. Follow and listen to For the Love wherever you get your podcasts. Jennifer Thompson's goal when she created the nonprofit organization Healing Justice in 2015

was to help all groups harmed by wrongful convictions. Healing justice now advises prosecutors' offices around the country on dealing more effectively and empathetically with crime victims in exoneration cases. But it's what they call the healing side of their work that is most meaningful to Jennifer. She did coursework in trauma recovery and worked with psychologists to design a program to safely bring together

victims of crime and exoneries. They work in small groups on the wounds left behind when the justice system gets it wrong. Remember the breaking and gluing back together of those bowls? Did you notice how fast and easy it was to break it and how hard it is to put it back together again? That was just the start of this retreat's opening exercise, and perhaps a metaphor for the whole endeavor.

So what I'm going to ask you to do now is to paint your broken places with gold. This is actually 24-kart gold paint. She told us it's close. called Kinsugi. Kinsugi. Kinsugi, mm-hmm. What is that?

It's the Japanese concept that even in our broken places, we're still beautiful, because we're strong at our broken places, and we're not disposable. But before they can paint their real wounds with gold, they have to look hard at the brakes that need repair. I lost part of my heart. So, sitting in a circle, using a rock, to give whoever holds at the floor, and with a healing justice social worker always present,

they talked about their losses. I lost believing in myself. I had so much confidence. I had so much. That first, you know, slam on the doors, everything got real right then, you know, I've seen people suicide, deaf by, cop, just getting beat up, killed.

You know, how come? comes back and I have to keep reminding myself, you know, right here, I'm in the present right now. The hardest part for me is hearing what the exoneries went through in prison. It's so hard to hear, but it's so necessary. On day two of the retreat, Jennifer led an exercise on how the harsh words used against each of them end up becoming internalized. You might have been called a liar. You might have been called a rapist.

And those words really do take on a life of their own. I'd like for you to write a letter to yourself from the space of the critical mind, that loop that plays in your head over and over again. You had them write letters. What was the purpose? I've done this before. When they're writing it, they're not happy.

And then I had them read it out loud at the circle. They didn't like it. Dear Chris, you failed in life. Why did you confess? I will never have confessed. Why can't you just be quiet? Dear Raymond, you are an angry black man. You will never know love.

You will always be a prisoner. And then there was Loretta's. Dear Loretta, you deserve to be rape and beaten. You really don't deserve to be alive. be alive. You aren't brave nor strong. You are a failure as a woman and a mother. Loretta, Jennifer told us, faces one of the most excruciating situations for a victim in an exoneration case, when the DNA clears one man but doesn't identify who the actual assailant

was. I'm stuck. She told us she relives the assault daily and can't get the exonerated man's face out of her memory. So even though he was cleared through DNA, his face is still there. Yes. The DNA said it wasn't him. You didn't believe it?

No. I feel guilty because I feel like I did something wrong. So you're having both the feeling that he was the one and that you did something wrong? Yes. Oh my God, you really are stuck. I don't know who did this. For Andrea Harrison, whose mother's killer also remains unknown, it's a familiar struggle.

What was told to me was that he was the person who murdered my mother, and so that was a belief of minds for a lot of years. I can't get that out of my head. On his side of it, I mean, that's sad. It is sad. It is sad. The justice system failed him just like it did us. Until now, Andrea and her father had not been willing to attend a retreat with exonerese present.

Do you think that the exonerated person and the victim are almost pitted against each other when there shouldn't be? They're both victims of the same perpetrator who knows someone's sitting in jail for what he or she did. That's right. At the end of the day, when an innocent person's in prison, a guilty person's not, we should all be concerned. about that. And maybe they go off and do it many more times. In my case, the person who wasn't caught committed six more first-degree rapes before he was ever apprehended. I just love that we're here working on this. In the circle, after reading the critical letters, Jennifer turned the tables. So I want you to write a second letter now to yourself from the

self-compassion voice, the voice that you would use for the person you love the most. So they rewrote it. They did. They turned it. Oh, yeah. And then they read that out loud in their faces. They smiled when they read it. Dear Raymond, you have a kind heart.

You are loved. Raymond, your dreams have come true, and you are free to dream more and create. You are a great mother, grandmother, wife, daughter, sister, friend, and so on and on. Keep going. You got this. I've seen you stumble, and I've seen you bounce right back. Dear Lurita, you know that it's never too late to follow your dreams. You should never stop believing in yourself.

You didn't deserve to be hurt by anyone or anything. I will always be your biggest fan and supporter. I love you. That was different. So why is it that we speak to ourselves in a way that we would never speak to the people that we love? Something I need to change, you know, is that it was actually harder to write. the happy letter for me. I do believe the good things about myself, but I don't think I really say them to myself enough. And the reality is if we really want to do good in the world,

hating ourselves serves nobody at all. Who's ready? After two emotion-filled days came a scene we weren't expecting. Catch it! The group gathered together for improv games, acting like animals, smiling and laughing. And laughing. You play a lot of games. The games are just really a way of inviting that child to come back and play again.

If you feel safe, you can pretend like you're a monkey. You can do all kinds of ridiculous things, and it's OK, because everybody else is doing it too. I know, but not you feel guilty. We noticed elusening and connecting. Later that night over an art project, the kind of impromptu conversation Jennifer says this retreat is all about.

How can somebody look at me and think that I would do something so heinous like that? That's part of the trauma for me. When you hear some of our stories, do you ever, like, blame us? Like me being an exonerary Yeah. Do you ever see yourself blaming the victims for...

You didn't do anything wrong. It's not your fault. The next morning, as they gathered in the circle for the third and final day... I feel blessed. I feel light as a feathering. The mood had shifted dramatically. I feel... ...opened.

I feel courageous. I feel... nurtured, even though it's painful to let it out, I think you guys do it because, you know, it's going to help the next person. Yeah. And it has. So how did the retreat go? Very enlightening. Very powerful.

We took off the mass that everybody sees. What questions did you ask each other, exoneries to crime victims and back around? I asked what happened to you when everyone was honest. And everybody was honest? I asked right away I shook Mr. Howard's hand, and I feel for this man. And my other two friends back there that are exonerese, I see it now because we only looked from our side of the table.

We never seen it from their side. I had that fear, even when I came here. I didn't know if I was coming into hate because I was exonerated. Because, you know, nobody believed me for, you know, 30 years. I think we believe it. Thank you. I had questions myself for an exonerie, and I was able to build up the courage to even ask Raymond because I still hold this guilt. And I was finally able to let it go after talking to him.

I knew he was speaking from his heart. And it took 30 years for him to let me get that guilt off of me. Wow. I thank you. May you keep spreading your love to everyone that needs it. So as the retreat drew to a close, they clasped hands and shared wishes for one another. Penny, may you continue on your journey of healing? What happened in your case that allowed you to heal?

I think I'll always be healing. But I think what has helped me more than anything is the relationships I've built. along the way with people that have been harmed and hurt just like me. Because you're helping other people. Jennifer, may you always be in our lives and may you always be courageous as you are. I'm helping other people, but what they don't realize is they're also helping me. They're healing. They are healing.

They are healing. And I want to walk with him on that journey. Woo! A bit of good news. Three of the exoneries have gotten married since our story first aired. Congratulations to Howard Dudley, Chris Ochoa, and Raymond Towler. One of the most remarkable and mysterious migrations in the natural world occurs every spring. From Mexico to the United States, tens of millions of monarch butterflies make the epic aerial journey home.

They've spent the winter hanging out in trees in a forest on a remote mountain in Mexico, resting up after flying all the way from Canada and the northern U.S. where they were born. It's believed monarchs have been making this journey for thousands of years, but there's a lot fewer of them than there used to be. The population in Mexico has declined 70% in the last 30 years. We arrived there last year just in time to watch the monarchs emerge from their slumber and begin to take flight. The monarchs come to these mountains in Micho O'Conn in central Mexico,

starting in late October. Do you still get excited going up to see them? Every time there's no substitute. One of our guides, Jorge Rickards, is the director of the nonprofit World Wildlife Fund in Mexico. We're going to leave the horses, walk a little bit, very, very carefully and very quietly, so we won't disturb the butterflies.

The monarchs roost in patches of fir and pine trees 11,000 feet up. There are some 66 million of them here, but it's hard to see them at first. There are what appear to be clumps of dead leaves hanging from sagging branches. But those are butterflies, tens of thousands of them, clustered together in trees all around. There's so many of them on the branches of the trees, the branches are all pointing toward the ground. Imagine, imagine the likeness of a butterfly,

and they are so many of them here that they actually bend the trees, and they like the firs because they have so many little leaves or spicules, so there's lots of surface to cling onto. The monarchs earn a kind of hibernation. On the way here, they've faddened up on nectar, which helps them survive and rest through the long winter months. The climate on this mountain is ideal.

The canopy of trees protects the butterflies from storms, and though the air is cool, it's relatively humid, so they stay hydrated. The clusters are so drab when you're looking at them because they have their wings closed. In many butterflies, on the underside is drab or less lightly colored, and that happens in nature a lot, so it's not very inviting. To a predator. Why are we whispering?

They are very sensitive to sound. They are also sensitive to CO2. So the less we talk, the better, they relate that with a predator. As I have other mammal, which I do. So they can sense of like a mouse breathing. Or a bird. A bird breathing. That is right.

On the forest floor, all around us, monarchs litter the ground. But most are not dead. They've just fallen from trees during the night, and their muscles are too cold for them to fly. Cup them in your hands, you can revive them with your breath. They need a certain temperature to get their wing muscles back. They are very, very vulnerable when they're on the floor. And the birds know that, and the mice know that.

That's almost ready. There you go. Come on, little, buddy. Maybe a little more. There you know. He likes you. Wow. When the sun begins to hit the trees, flashes of orange appear.

The monarchs are warming and slowly opening their wings. It really is the day warmed up, we're going to see more activities. Cort Whalen has been bringing tour groups here and photographing monarchs for more than 20 years. He shows us a spot where some butterflies have taken flight. Then, after a few minutes, suddenly the air is filled with them. This is extraordinary. This is it. This is what's all about. This is, uh, nature knows when to put on a show, huh?

And how to put on a show. Why have they all now just suddenly taken off? So it's a warm day, we're getting a lot of sunlight, so we're just ramping up, ramping up. I mean, what's insane is it's not just over here, it's over there, it's over there. I mean... That's extraordinary. But yeah, it's all the heat and it's all the sun. You can actually hear the sound of butterfly wings.

Yeah. Let's just be quiet for a second. Look at that, look at that up there. Oh my gosh. Whoa. This is about as good as it possibly gets. It's like a snow globe of monarchs. You got a butterfly on you.

Oh, there we go. It's still something of a mystery how these monarchs manage to get here. Most only live about a month. They spend their short lives, eating and mating, and females lay eggs. But in late summer and early summer, early fall, what's called a super generation of monarchs appear. Hatched as caterpillars, they transform into chrysalises. And then, after a week or two, emerges butterflies.

And that's when they do something extraordinary. With winter coming, they sense the shorter days in changing temperatures and suppress a key reproductive hormone, a process called diapause, which helps them conserve their energy and live up to nine months. times longer than most monarchs. It's crazy that there's this super generation of monarchs that can make it all the way, and then the rest or die off after a month. What is amazing is how they detonate this process of not developing sexual organs,

but using that energy for the flight. Monarchs born west of the Rockies stay there and migrate shorter distances. It's this supergeneration, born in Canada and east of the Rockies, in the northern United States that flies to Mexico. Hundreds of millions of them join up on a journey of some 3,000 miles, which can take them three months or longer. To help them find their way, monarchs have circadian clocks in their antennae, and navigate using internal compasses that respond to the position of the sun

and the Earth's magnetic field. Why are they coming here? Well, that's a big mystery. Maybe it's a prehistoric route. Maybe it was determined by geographical conditions in terms of topography. Maybe it had to do with climate. You're talking about multiple generations who all have this exact same instinct and know where to go and all go to the exact same spot.

That's one of the most magical things that can happen in the natural world. How do they know? The monarchs were discovered by researchers on this mountain range in 1975, and the Mexican government declared the area of Federal Reserve 11 years later. But for decades, illegal logging threatened the butterfly's roosting spots, which once covered as much as 45 acres. It's now down to four and a half. World Wildlife Fund has spent years trying to combat the destruction,

assessing the health of the forest, measuring the size of butterfly colonies and planting trees. They've also worked with local communities and indigenous groups to protect the land and help them profit from tourism. The good news is the forest is rebounding. Because it's just so unusual to see this. It's like almost an optical illusion because everything's beating at this weird frequency.

It's like the whole world is kind of pulsing. So what are they doing here? Yeah, so this is kind of a classic mud puddling of modern butterflies. Mud puddling? Yeah, mud puddling. It's a real scientific term. So they're mainly after hydration, but butterflies are known to need some trace elements like salts and whatnot. And it doesn't look like much, but just this little bit of water in this mud puddle is enough for them to get some water. And then what will happen is they'll return to the roost before evening.

After about four months in Mexico, this super generation of monarchs are near the end of their long life cycle. They're finally ready to mate and migrate north to lay their eggs. They'll die before they can make it back to where they were born, and their offspring might not live long enough to get there either, but future generations will, and there's an army of people trying to help them. In Kansas, volunteers come out to catch and tag monarchs so scientists can track. their migration. Good job, dude.

They're recruited by Chip Taylor, an 87-year-old ecologist who's been fascinated by monarch since he was a child. There's over 100,000 species of butterflies and moths, but pretty much the only one people know are monarchs. What is it about monarch butterflies? Well, monarchs have got charisma. I mean... Wait, wait a minute.

Monarch butterflies have charisma? Well, yeah, they have charisma because they are accessible. They're large, they're beautiful, they're slow. You can catch them. It involves Canada. It involves Mexico. Taylor founded a nonprofit called Monarch at the University of Kansas 30 years ago.

Nice. And so far, it's helped tag more than 2 million of them. How do you tag a butterfly that's so delicate? This is a rough butterfly, and that has to go thousands of miles. So it's a pretty tough butterfly. It's resilient. Yeah, it's resilient. But that resilience is being tantaliener.

They're tested. Monarchs returning to the U.S. need milkweed plants to lay their eggs on, and it's the only source of food their newly born caterpillars will eat. But milkweed is now hard to find. It's been virtually eradicated on agricultural land because of genetically modified corn and soybean crops that allow for mass spraying of herbicides. Monarch Watch encourages people to plant milkweed in their gardens and on public land, creating what they call monarch way stations. 50,000 of them have been planted so far.

In Mexico, those efforts have gotten noticed. They are taking water. Eduardo Rendon, head of World Wildlife Fund's Monarch Butterfly program, showed us a tag he recently found. So this is one of the tags from Monarch Watch from Chip Taylor. Exactly. I find maybe 12 meters for over here. Yeah, I was measuring the camera.

colony and then I see the ground and I find this stack. But it's the only way that we can to prove that monarch from the United States and Canada come here to over winter. Less than 20% of the monarchs that head out on this miraculous migration actually make it to the mountains of Michoacan. Scientists say worsening storms and rising temperatures kill off many, though this past year the number of monarchs that survived the trip nearly doubled. It was particularly welcome news in Mexico, where the butterflies' arrival in late October

coincides with a deeply spiritual celebration, what's known as the Day of the Dead. That's when many here believe the souls of family and friends who died return to visit their loved ones. And so that's why the butterflies are returning as well. Local people believe that the monarchs are the returning spirits of... That is correct. Of the death. That is correct, yes. So who knows?

Maybe we are, actually, you are reviving, you're helping someone's ancestor fly back. Yes, indeed. So it's very magical. Since our story aired, scientists tell us conservation measures are going in the right direction. One survey found that the monarchs covered more than double the forest area during this year's hibernation season. That's more than seven acres of Mexico. Mexican forest covered in butterflies. Anderson Cooper's trip to see butterflies, years in the making.

Not quite so easy. At 60 Minutes Overtime.com. Hey, gang, it's Jill Schlesinger. I'm launching a new show. It's called Money Moves, and we are going to move. We are going to answer your financial questions and take the mystery out of your financial life. Follow and listen wherever you get your podcasts.