Hello everyone
Here is a special guest article about Monarch Butterflies.
Years ago, when I was in primary school, the first-grade teacher, Abigail Winger, would bring in Monarch caterpillars and chrysalises for the students to watch as they went through their life cycle to emerge as beautiful, delicate Monarch butterflies. She still "mothered" Monarchs into her 90's as friends collected the caterpillars and brought them into her room at the nursing home in Fort Erie. When they emerged, she would open her window and let them fly. Her joy at seeing them flutter free never left her face no matter how often she experienced it. She taught her students about their fragile existence and amazing metamorphosis and left lasting impressions on her students about the value of nature and the amazing creatures in it. When she died a couple of years ago, I and others took up her mantle.
I have some milkweed on my property and, although it competes with my garden, I let it grow to help the Monarchs. They are considered endangered at the federal level. Monarchs feed on the nectar from wildflowers, lay their eggs on milkweed and the caterpillars eat only milkweed. The cardenolide that milkweed produces does not harm Monarch caterpillars but the taste repels other animals that would otherwise eat them. That makes milkweed essential for the caterpillars to mature into butterflies.
A place where I found a major nursery for Monarchs was Waverly Beach and Woods. Milkweed is abundant at Waverly throughout the swamp and thicket portions, where development has been proposed, and around the storm water pond. When I bicycled in the fall, dozens of people would be there photographing hundreds of these elegant creatures emerging from their chrysalises, feeding and then resting on the beach before they fluttered across the lake to begin their migration thousands of miles south to Mexico. Such amazing creatures! They seem to know the right time to leave, usually early October. Two years ago a huge number left the same day and the next day there was a terrible storm They seemed to know! This is also the shortest transit point for them to cross Lake Erie so it is doubly important.
Sadly, most if not all of the milkweed is gone. It has been slashed down and left the Monarchs no nursery or feeding station for their long migration. Monarch populations have plummeted due to climate change and the destruction of their habitat, including that at Waverly, and have declined over EIGHTY percent in the last 20 years so they are now considered endangered. This habitat can grow back if left alone leaving at least one sanctuary for these precious and harmless creatures but if developed, it will be another nail in their coffin. Their beauty is not the only thing that makes them vital. They are pollinators for the very foods we humans need to grow.
Every time one of my "adopted" new Monarchs is born and I let it fly, I have the same silly grin on my face as Abigail. I hope others can experience that joy. What gives us the right to destroy them? Money won't bring them back once they're gone.
I hope you enjoyed this wonderful article.
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