I was touched originally when I was just
a little kid I was seven and the
National Geographic came in the mail and
I remember my dad opening up those pages
and I saw those monarch butterflies and
I thought wow that’s a magic place that
experience of going to the sanctuaries
in Mexico was phenomenal you realize how
small we are in this great migration
it’s just an amazing connection when
people realize that this is a species
that is iconic for America and to have
that slip away in our lifetimes
just would be a severe tragedy and more
and more people are starting to
recognize you know that there’s an issue
the monarch to me is sort of like the
canary in the cornfield
I think this monarch is kind of a
warning signal
the most common butterfly probably in
the world over a period of twenty years
it’s associated with this rapidly
developing agriculture just dropping
down to practically nothing over the
past twenty one years for which we have
really good data the numbers have now
dropped down to less than 10% of what
they were in the very fact that millions
of them can aggregate in Mexico fact
that they can cluster in such numbers is
because they have chemical defense in
their bodies which is derived from the
milkweed plants what we do is we
encourage people to plant the milkweed
which will attract the adult butterflies
and then they will lay the eggs then you
can raise them and really just help them
reach adulthood the monarch caterpillars
that I raised and that we encourage
people to raise are those that are wild
found and the reason for that is with
the population being so low and
essentially so fragile we don’t want to
be buying caterpillars or buying larvae
that might have disease and the more
milkweed and the more nectar plants the
we have available the more the monarch
butterflies themselves can do what they
do naturally and bring back the
population thank you all for coming
today all of you coming together today
all of the things that you’re doing
every milkweed plant that you plant and
every nectar plant that you plant really
makes a difference what we’re trying to
do is educate the people throughout the
country that we’ve lost a lot of habitat
and this is the main reason that the
monarch butterflies are down losing
something like a million to two million
acres a year throughout the country just
due to development and agriculture and a
number of other things that destroy
natural habitats and so what that means
is that if we don’t compensate for that
much loss every year we’re going to
continue to lose ground with pollinators
with ground nesting birds with monarch
butterflies and everything else that
shares those habitats a lot of times
people aren’t even comfortable with
planting gardens so we wanted to show
people how to do a planting how to
properly secure the roots so that it’s
touching soil we can’t mow everything
into oblivion
we can’t herbicide everything into a
monoculture we really have to maintain
the diversity out there because that
diversity is the crux the basis for all
of these ecosystems out there I am
optimistic I think they can be saved and
I think the reason they can be saved is
because enough people care about them
monarchs are very prolific insects each
female is able to lay up to 300 eggs and
if the monarchs could get in three or
four generations in a row and have a
good summer up here in the breeding
range then they’ll come back I might
just plant my one monarch Waystation
which is just a raindrop
but then if my neighbor sees it and
plants one two and then another neighbor
sees it and then we start to grow them
then it becomes something significant I
feel like the people of my generation
are responsible for making sure that
everybody looking forward still has that
experience and that those monarchs that
great migration is still happening
you
a little kid I was seven and the
National Geographic came in the mail and
I remember my dad opening up those pages
and I saw those monarch butterflies and
I thought wow that’s a magic place that
experience of going to the sanctuaries
in Mexico was phenomenal you realize how
small we are in this great migration
it’s just an amazing connection when
people realize that this is a species
that is iconic for America and to have
that slip away in our lifetimes
just would be a severe tragedy and more
and more people are starting to
recognize you know that there’s an issue
the monarch to me is sort of like the
canary in the cornfield
I think this monarch is kind of a
warning signal
the most common butterfly probably in
the world over a period of twenty years
it’s associated with this rapidly
developing agriculture just dropping
down to practically nothing over the
past twenty one years for which we have
really good data the numbers have now
dropped down to less than 10% of what
they were in the very fact that millions
of them can aggregate in Mexico fact
that they can cluster in such numbers is
because they have chemical defense in
their bodies which is derived from the
milkweed plants what we do is we
encourage people to plant the milkweed
which will attract the adult butterflies
and then they will lay the eggs then you
can raise them and really just help them
reach adulthood the monarch caterpillars
that I raised and that we encourage
people to raise are those that are wild
found and the reason for that is with
the population being so low and
essentially so fragile we don’t want to
be buying caterpillars or buying larvae
that might have disease and the more
milkweed and the more nectar plants the
we have available the more the monarch
butterflies themselves can do what they
do naturally and bring back the
population thank you all for coming
today all of you coming together today
all of the things that you’re doing
every milkweed plant that you plant and
every nectar plant that you plant really
makes a difference what we’re trying to
do is educate the people throughout the
country that we’ve lost a lot of habitat
and this is the main reason that the
monarch butterflies are down losing
something like a million to two million
acres a year throughout the country just
due to development and agriculture and a
number of other things that destroy
natural habitats and so what that means
is that if we don’t compensate for that
much loss every year we’re going to
continue to lose ground with pollinators
with ground nesting birds with monarch
butterflies and everything else that
shares those habitats a lot of times
people aren’t even comfortable with
planting gardens so we wanted to show
people how to do a planting how to
properly secure the roots so that it’s
touching soil we can’t mow everything
into oblivion
we can’t herbicide everything into a
monoculture we really have to maintain
the diversity out there because that
diversity is the crux the basis for all
of these ecosystems out there I am
optimistic I think they can be saved and
I think the reason they can be saved is
because enough people care about them
monarchs are very prolific insects each
female is able to lay up to 300 eggs and
if the monarchs could get in three or
four generations in a row and have a
good summer up here in the breeding
range then they’ll come back I might
just plant my one monarch Waystation
which is just a raindrop
but then if my neighbor sees it and
plants one two and then another neighbor
sees it and then we start to grow them
then it becomes something significant I
feel like the people of my generation
are responsible for making sure that
everybody looking forward still has that
experience and that those monarchs that
great migration is still happening
you
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