Monarch Conservation

http://www.kentucky.com/2014/09/19/3437729/waystations-help-monarch-butterflies.html

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/outdoors/29974777-452/family-documents-step-by-step-development-of-monarch-butterfly.html#.VCAyaUxOkuo

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/life/gardening/article/Monarch-butterflies-depend-on-the-milkweed-to-5767077.php

http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news/insight/2014/09/21/wild_in_the_city_monarch_butterflies_on_the_move_across_toronto_waterfront.html

http://www.abc-7.com/story/26560574/honey-bee-shortage-threatens-natures-balance

http://m.thestar.com/#/article/news/gta/2014/09/17/beekeepers_feeling_the_sting_of_honey_bee_losses.html

A&M researchers, scientists push for monarch conservation | thebatt A&M researchers, scientists push for monarch conservation Spring population expected to rise despite habitat loss By Danielle Docherty On September 3, 2014 photo by Jonathan Sheen Craig Wilson, A&M researcher, said the monarch migration is in critical need of restored habitat.   It is a biannual phenomenon at risk of disappearing all together, but monarch butterflies are again poised to pass through Texas on a 3,000-mile journey from Canada to their wintering grounds in Mexico.  A recent University of Guelph study said 90 percent of monarch habitat has been destroyed, prompting many in the scientific community to seek government action. Although evidence from the spring migration points to a slight population increase, the monarch’s numbers remain dangerously low and many researchers are concerned with the migration’s survival. “We’re at risk of losing a symbolic backyard beauty that has been par...

Sun Current | From egg to butterfly The kids living around Marion McNurlen’s Morningside home love to set free the monarch butterflies raised by McNurlen. Marion McNurlen holds the mesh lid where caterpillars have turned into the chrysalides that will eventually produce monarch butterflies. McNurlen finds the eggs on milkweed leaves, keeping them in her home until they turn into butterflies and are set free by the neighborhood children. (Sun Current staff photo by Lisa Kaczke) Her 2-year-old granddaughter watches the egg become a caterpillar that turns into a chrysalis before letting the adult butterfly go in her grandmother’s yard. It’s about teaching children so they’re interested and raising children who will be advocates for critters, McNurlen said. McNurlen has let 60 monarch butterflies go over the past several years that she found as eggs and raised to butterflies in her home. Her love of monarch butterflies has turned a lot of friends on to raising them as well. This has been...

A flower fit for a monarch A flower fit for a monarch Waterloo Region Record By   Editorial A weed is merely a plant that grows where it is unwanted. In the eyes of many farmers, according to conventional wisdom and until recently Ontario law, the common milkweed is what its name says it is — a weed, an enemy fit only to be destroyed. But in the tiny eyes of the monarch butterfly, the milkweed is life. Adults drink nectar from its fragrant flowers. Females lay their eggs on the undersides of its leaves. And as for the caterpillars that will become the next generation of monarchs, the milkweed leaves are its sole source of nourishment. No milkweed, no butterfly. Sadly, this scenario has been playing itself out in southern Ontario where, as both rural and urban communities waged war on the milkweed, the sight of the monarch, with its blazing orange wings, fluttering through the air has grown increasingly uncommon. These are remarkable creatures who each year, and over the course o...

Monarch butterflies get a little TLC at Kings County couple’s home | The Chronicle Herald BROOKLYN CORNER — A monarch maternity ward, complete with milkweed feeding stations, is in full swing in tiny Brooklyn Corner, Kings County. Larry and Alison Bogan have been operating a monarch butterfly sanctuary in their basement for the past eight years, nursing the brightly coloured insects to life, tagging some and releasing them into the wild. “We started finding caterpillars in a patch of milkweed plants in 2006 when we let the field go to wildflowers,” Larry Bogan said during a brief tour of his home and surrounding land Friday. “The milkweed spreads by the root and kind of took over the field. The monarchs just know there’s milkweed here and they come.” So begins the interesting life cycle of the monarch. In the spring and summer months, eggs are laid on the leaves of the milkweed plant. These eggs hatch after four days, producing larvae (caterpillars) that feed on the leaves for about ...

Family’s fancy fields monarch butterfly fleet - Toledo Blade Susan Garn picked up a monarch butterfly that had just emerged from its chrysalis Wednesday but couldn’t quite fly yet. She held it up in the palm of her hands and let it float away. Susan Garn stands near the milkweed plants that the monarch caterpillars feed on at her Perrysburg home. THE BLADE/AMY E. VOIGT Enlarge  |  Buy This Photo Motherly love is exactly what she gave 158 monarch butterflies that went through the Garn family protection service from egg to monarch. After tending to zero monarchs last summer because of freezing temperatures in Mexico, Mrs. Garn was worried this year would be the same. Then came late June when she found the first ones in the front shrubs. A newly hatched Monarch butterfly dries its wings after exiting its chrysalis at the Garn home in Perrysburg. THE BLADE/AMY E. VOIGT Enlarge  |  Buy This Photo “Grant, Grant,” she shouted to her husband before marking her calendar an...

Bringing a Sense of Wonder to the Classroom With Butterflies T he Monarch Teacher Network recently held a two day workshop in Meaford. Teachers from several Ontario school boards gathered at St Vincent Euphrasia Elementary to learn all about the Monarch Butterfly, a spectacular species at risk pollinator, and how to bring a sense of wonder into their classroom this September. With support from the Toronto Region Conservation Authority and the TD Friends of the Environment, the Monarch Teachers Network volunteers brought together the story of the Monarch and education. Participants learned about the life cycle, the scientific history of the search for Monarch over wintering sites and the proper techniques for rearing Monarchs through out their life cycle. Monarch Teacher Network was able to provide participants with the opportunity to tag Monarchs (with small specially developed stickers that have a specific identification number on them) which will allow the butterfly to be tracked t...

Annual count starts for declining monarch populations — NewsWorks Cape May's annual Monarch Monitoring Project kicks off this week amid calls for the federal government to protect the iconic black-and-orange butterflies. For the next two months, volunteers will count the butterflies making their southbound migration from Canada to Mexico as they pass over Cape May Point. This year, the numbers they collect may be more timely than ever as conservation groups try to land the butterfly on the threatened species list of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Sarina Jepsen is from the Xerces Society, one of the three conservation groups petitioning the federal government for protected status. "There are numerous local monitoring projects and all are incredibly important," Jepsen said. "It's very challenging to monitor a broadly distributed species that covers so much of the landscape, so the more people that are involved the better we can compare those different counts t...

If you raise Monarchs then you need to become familiar with something called 'Oe.' Oe is the shortened version of Ophryocystis elektroscirrha, a protozoan parasite that infects the Monarch (and Queen butterfly) world-wide. http://www.learnaboutmonarchs.com/learnaboutoespore.html