Note: This article is available at our website, www.switzerlandgc.org To read it online, go to the website and look
for the link, Monarch Committee Report, under NEWS in
the right-hand column of the home page. Click here to view a PDF version of the report.
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| monarch caterpillar on native aquatic milkweed |
In the summer of 2014 I shared my photos of the monarch caterpillars in my yard feasting on the milkweed I planted by posting Support Your Local Monarchs on our website. I was captivated by their voracious appetite and by their chrysalises, which soon adorned my shingled home. I felt I was watching a magnificent story unfold with every monarch that took wing. I became interested in the plight of the monarch as a species when I read that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) had recently been petitioned by the Xerces Society, the Center for Food Safety, and the Center for Biological Diversity for protection for the monarch as an endangered species. Over the course of 2015, the FWS has been considering the petition's claims that monarch populations have declined nearly 90 percent in the past twenty years and will continue to do so without regulatory intervention. The petition suggested that loss of native milkweed, the monarch's only larval food, was in large part responsible for their decline. Use of neonicotinoid-based pesticides, as well as growing genetically-modified (GMO) food crops were also implicated.
I turned to Monarch Watch to help me certify my garden as a Monarch Waystation and I subsequently obtained the same status for our Freedom Butterfly Garden in Alpine Groves Park containing native pollinator plants. That's when the Garden Club of Switzerland's Butterfly Monarch Committee was born. We spent almost six months researching ways to support our local monarchs, including those suggested in the petition to the FWS. At our May planning meeting we pooled the money we'd made with garden club raffles and resolved to use it to obtain native milkweed for homeowners and public lands in order to promote more Monarch Waystations.
This task proved more difficult than we'd first thought. Our order for native tuberosa milkweed was never filled, as statewide requests for this species outstripped the supply. For several months, all we could find in our local garden stores was the non-native tropical milkweed. At the start of 2015, following the advice of several monarch advocacy groups, we thought that this tropical variety would be an acceptable alternative. Then we read Dr. Jared Daniels findings and the findings of other researchers who found evidence that the tropical variety was not an acceptable substitute for long-term monarch sustainability.
While we were searching for the right milkweed we also mounted an educational project to introduce the topic of the monarch (and other butterflies) to the public. We registered our Freedom Butterfly Garden in a North American Butterfly Association (NABA) Butterfly Circle, the Bartram Trail Butterfly Circle. On June 2 our members participated in the NABA 4th of July Butterfly Count at Alpine Groves Park. Our Publicity Committee Chair, Dianne Battle, wrote a series of newspaper articles to educate the public. Her first, Butterflies Count about our NABA butterfly count activity, appeared in the July issue of our local newspaper, The Creekline. She wrote a follow-up article in the August edition, "How High Does the Swallowtail Fly?" describing how to identify butterflies using various criteria, including flight characteristics and plants they associate with. She posted a slideshow on our website, Butterflies in the Garden, to help distinguish between different types of butterflies.
In July we were able to locate some native milkweed, the white aquatic milkweed, ... We purchased two batches of these plants. Since aquatic milkweed require a swampy environment, these plants would prove unsuitable for distribution to the average homeowner. We were able to locate two additional areas where the plants would be viewable by the public and where there was a steward or knowledgeable person who could speak to the plight of the monarchs and the need for their native larval host plants: Trout Creek Park, a public recreational center and Saturiwa, a conservation easement property dedicated to promoting wildlife habitat restoration. The September issue of The Creekline covered our activities with the story, "Monarchs on the Brink,"
We are proud of our actions this past year to Protect our Pollinators by planting native milkweed and educating the public about the dangers of pesticides to pollinators. We are anxiously awaiting the findings of the FWS regarding the monarch's status as an endangered species, and, regardless of their determination, our committee is making plans to promote the planting of additional native milkweed and supporting the monarch and other pollinators.
Online References:
Saturiwa: A Habitat for Longleaf Pine and Monarchs
Protecting Our Pollinators -
Kickoff meeting of the Monarch Committee
Monarchs on the Brink September 2015 Issue of The Creekline newspaper
Butterflies, Our Blog, and a Blue Moon July 31
How High Does the Swallowtail Fly? featured in the August 2015 The Creekline newspaper
Butterflies in the Garden A Slideshow
Butterflies Count - And So Did We!
Butterflies Count: July 2015 The Creekline newspaper
I turned to Monarch Watch to help me certify my garden as a Monarch Waystation and I subsequently obtained the same status for our Freedom Butterfly Garden in Alpine Groves Park containing native pollinator plants. That's when the Garden Club of Switzerland's Butterfly Monarch Committee was born. We spent almost six months researching ways to support our local monarchs, including those suggested in the petition to the FWS. At our May planning meeting we pooled the money we'd made with garden club raffles and resolved to use it to obtain native milkweed for homeowners and public lands in order to promote more Monarch Waystations.
This task proved more difficult than we'd first thought. Our order for native tuberosa milkweed was never filled, as statewide requests for this species outstripped the supply. For several months, all we could find in our local garden stores was the non-native tropical milkweed. At the start of 2015, following the advice of several monarch advocacy groups, we thought that this tropical variety would be an acceptable alternative. Then we read Dr. Jared Daniels findings and the findings of other researchers who found evidence that the tropical variety was not an acceptable substitute for long-term monarch sustainability.
While we were searching for the right milkweed we also mounted an educational project to introduce the topic of the monarch (and other butterflies) to the public. We registered our Freedom Butterfly Garden in a North American Butterfly Association (NABA) Butterfly Circle, the Bartram Trail Butterfly Circle. On June 2 our members participated in the NABA 4th of July Butterfly Count at Alpine Groves Park. Our Publicity Committee Chair, Dianne Battle, wrote a series of newspaper articles to educate the public. Her first, Butterflies Count about our NABA butterfly count activity, appeared in the July issue of our local newspaper, The Creekline. She wrote a follow-up article in the August edition, "How High Does the Swallowtail Fly?" describing how to identify butterflies using various criteria, including flight characteristics and plants they associate with. She posted a slideshow on our website, Butterflies in the Garden, to help distinguish between different types of butterflies.
In July we were able to locate some native milkweed, the white aquatic milkweed, ... We purchased two batches of these plants. Since aquatic milkweed require a swampy environment, these plants would prove unsuitable for distribution to the average homeowner. We were able to locate two additional areas where the plants would be viewable by the public and where there was a steward or knowledgeable person who could speak to the plight of the monarchs and the need for their native larval host plants: Trout Creek Park, a public recreational center and Saturiwa, a conservation easement property dedicated to promoting wildlife habitat restoration. The September issue of The Creekline covered our activities with the story, "Monarchs on the Brink,"
We are proud of our actions this past year to Protect our Pollinators by planting native milkweed and educating the public about the dangers of pesticides to pollinators. We are anxiously awaiting the findings of the FWS regarding the monarch's status as an endangered species, and, regardless of their determination, our committee is making plans to promote the planting of additional native milkweed and supporting the monarch and other pollinators.
Online References:
Saturiwa: A Habitat for Longleaf Pine and Monarchs
Protecting Our Pollinators -
Kickoff meeting of the Monarch Committee
Monarchs on the Brink September 2015 Issue of The Creekline newspaper
Butterflies, Our Blog, and a Blue Moon July 31
How High Does the Swallowtail Fly? featured in the August 2015 The Creekline newspaper
Butterflies in the Garden A Slideshow
Butterflies Count - And So Did We!
Butterflies Count: July 2015 The Creekline newspaper
