The Monarch needs you

The Monarch needs you

for nature site with shadowThis little guy is a future Monarch butterfly. Here he is seen crawling up milkweed I planted as a desperate measure to do my part to save this magnificent species.

The thing is, since 1990 the count of Monarchs is down by almost a billion in our country.

edited for site with shadow

Loss of habitat due to development, planting of soybeans and corn, and pesticides are all to blame.

These gorgeous creatures may seem delicate, but they migrate thousands of miles in the early fall from the East Coast to Mexico. On the West Coast, the Monarchs travel from west of the Rockies to winter in sunny California. It takes a few generations of the butterflies to make the trips.

But along the way, the butterflies are at a loss to find their only food: milkweed.

Butterflies cropped with shadowFor what you can do to help protect the native grasslands that Monarchs desperately need, go to the National Wildlife Foundation to send a message to the Environmental Protection Agency to move to protect grasslands.

And, if you live in one of the migration paths of the Monarchs you can plant about five milkweed plants close together, or more, and you will get some hungry visitors stopping by.

 

“God wills the interdependence of creatures.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 340

Artist’s Note: This is a pen and ink drawing. I used a grid over the paper to place the visuals on the page in proper dimension. I really liked this process. It helped me tremendously in getting the right scale for the picture.