The monarch butterfly is one of the most recognizable – bright orange wings, black stripes and white spots - but it’s also one of the most threatened species. In 20 years, their population in North America has gone down 90 percent.
The Little River Wetland Project in Fort Wayne wants to help prevent monarchs from disappearing all together. The non-profit based at Eagle Marsh protects the plants the butterflies need to help them on their annual migration from Canada to Mexico.
Each year during the migration, Little River holds a family celebration of monarchs, to learn about monarchs, why they’re important, and even to see them migrating.
It was five years ago this month Betsy Yankowiak had an idea. She’s the program director for Little Rivers Wetland Project, and says on that hike with students at Eagle Marsh, right before autumn, she saw what she thought were hundreds of dead leaves falling from the trees. Turns out – they were actually migrating monarch butterflies.
“And I was like, this is incredible," says Yankowiak, "the kids were within inches of these butterflies waking up and flying out to nectar.” :
So, the next year they held their first Monarch Festival, to celebrate the butterflies passing through, and learn how to help them survive. The event has grown every year since. It’s festival day, and eight year old Kellen Ray is now an expert on monarch’s life cycles.
“I learned that they cannot just be a caterpillar forever, they have to change into a monarch butterfly,” says Ray.
Volunteers show off some monarchs up close and personal. According to Russ Vorhees, monarchs are on a long journey right now.
“Even the ones here in Fort Wayne, if you see a monarch this month, it’s definitely the methuselah generation," says Vorhees, "which means it’s going to live for nine months, now the ones you see are the ones that are gonna head to Mexico.”
Vorhees is a volunteer for Little River. He explains how the monarch’s migration is multigenerational, and that the Midwest plays an important role in the journey.
“We’re sort of a way station for these guys," says Vorhees. "They move from Mexico up through the Midwest up into Canada, and then they come back on their migration back to Mexico."
That’s the longest migration of any insect in North America - one monarch can fly more than 200 miles in one day. They may be pretty and full of stamina, but today Kellen Ray, dressed in orange Crete paper wings, learned that’s not the whole story.
“There’s more to butterflies than looking colorful,” says Ray.
In fact, Russ Vorhees says there’s a lot more. They’re sort of like the canary in the coal mine.
"If we start losing insects like monarchs we’re going to start losing other species too," says Vorhees. "Our food supply depends on insects. They’re just important for our survival”
And they’re disappearing at an alarming rate. Changing weather patterns have a lot to do with it. But one of the biggest threats to the monarch’s survival is loss of habitat. More genetically modified crops, means stronger chemical herbicides that destroy milkweed – the only plant monarchs will lay their eggs on.
“And if we don’t have enough milkweed for them to lay eggs on, we will stop that generation from going on into Canada" says Vorhees. "We’re just a piece of that puzzle that’s real important for their survival.”
That’s why every region has to do its part to conserve habitat, according to Betsy Yankowiak. As fun as the festival is, she says these types of community events can have a big impact on the environment in the future.
“It’s an absolutely incredible opportunity to reach out to the young kids," says Yankowiak, "because instead of seeing that milkweed as a weed that needs to be sprayed and pulled, they’ll see it as a food source for monarch butterflies." :16
Back in the barn, three year old Oliver Ray, sporting construction paper antennae, says he knows where to find monarchs. “Butterflies live in the garden,” he says.
And the folks at Little River want to be sure they come back. They gave Oliver, and the rest of the attendees at the festival, their own milkweed to plant at home.