I got the idea when I was watering my flower garden one day. I have a 2nd year butterfly weed plant (asclepias tuberosa) that was in full bloom (for the first time!). I noticed a whole bunch (15-20?) of monarch caterpillars on the bush. I thought about how cool it would be to watch them grow and went on watering. The next day when I came to visit them, they were almost ALL gone. I did some research and found that about 90% of all eggs laid never make it to butterfly because of its many natural predators. I searched the plant. I found 3. I decided to protect them.
It turned into a library program. I would bring the caterpillars home with me every night and then bring them back in with me each day I was in the library. People started coming in just to look at them! Once they went into chrysalis, I left them in a special display container in the library until they were ready to hatch. If kids came in on a day there was a hatching, they got to release a butterfly. It was so fun! I taught kiddo’s (and lots of curious adults!) about the life cycle of the monarch, how to tell apart males and females, how to spot eggs on plants…and lots more. I’m looking forward to doing it again next year. It can be a lot of work (those caterpillars do nothing but eat and poop pretty much constantly- so cleaning up after them and feeding them is a full time job!). So worth it though. Next year I want to actually tag some (you can send away for a kit and they send you tiny tracking stickers to place on their wings). The butterflies that end up in Mexico with tags on them are entered into a database so you can see if any of your butterflies got recorded!
Here are some other resources for you if you are interested in learning more!
- In 2020, IFLS Board member Mary Ellen Brue made a little video about raising and releasing monarchs.
- Journey North is a project of the UW-Madison Arboretum to track migrations of various kinds, and they have some wonderful resources that are specifically about monarchs.