The second annual Monarch Migration Festival was organized at South Lake Storey Road in Galesburg, Illinois on Saturday, Sept. 10, in an effort to conserve and boost monarch butterfly population in the country.
The population of monarchs in the country has fallen up to half than what it was a year ago and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources is striving hard to protect the beautiful creature, which is also the state's official insect.
The distinctly orange-colored insects migrate over 3,400 miles every year from Canada and the United States to Mexico. Over the past 20 years the butterfly population has reduced largely because of loss of habitat and issues like storms in Mexico last winter. The butterflies, which have a life span of about a month, will emerge and die during the course of migration.
In addition, the proliferation of herbicide-tolerant crops along the migration route lets farmers apply more herbicide, killing milkweed plants that support the life cycle of the monarch butterflies during migration.
The monarch, which is regarded as a "nearly threatened" species, is requested to be included in the "endangered species" list by some conservation organizations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide on the issue by summer 2019.
Meanwhile, the Illinois Monarch Butterfly Summit has emerged to improve the situation. The summit aims to review all of the conservation efforts already being made in the state and to start laying down the foundation for a unified strategy.
One of these efforts is the Monarch Migration Festival, in which families learned about the monarch's life cycle, migration route and what it needs to survive. Participants were also allowed to tag a monarch butterfly before sending it on its way.
Illinois Department of Natural Resources Director Wayne Rosenthal said in the summit that monarch butterflies are not only an issue of the state and country but of the whole world.
Though monarch butterflies are not one of the most crucial pollinators, they deserve to be preserved for what they are.
"From an ecosystem standpoint, they aren't holding things together," Karen Oberhauser, co-chairwoman of Monarch Joint Venture, told the Chicago Tribune. "Monarchs are kind of like the 'Mona Lisa.' They're valuable just because they are."
Over in Iowa, a fundraiser organized by the Scott County Soil and Water Conservation District will offer interested people an opportunity to sponsor butterflies during a ceremony at the Nahant Marsh Education Center in Davenport on Saturday, Sept. 17. The event will be held between 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. and is open to everyone. However, to be able to sponsor a butterfly one has to pay $21.40 for a butterfly and $53.50 for three butterflies.
Photo: William Warby | Flickr
