During the Monarch Butterfly Festival at the Shiawassee Basin River Preserve, Aug. 22, visitors fed butterflies sugar water and tagged their wings for researchers before letting them go.
Butterflies are a pollinator and nectar sucking creature and important to the health of the earth and growing food, said Debbie Jackson, Monarch Watch conservation specialist.
During the festival, visitors learned Monarch butterflies are in trouble.
“We have seen a 90 percent decline in the Monarch butterfly,” Jackson said. “We need to educate the public on what is going on and how they can help. The food sources and habitat for our pollinators are disappearing. We need to plant one billion stems of milkweed to replace what we have lost. People can help by planting milkweed, but we will never see the numbers in Monarchs we have seen in the past.”
Jackson explained how habitat loss and environmental changes has led to the serious declines in butterflies, bees, and many other species.
“The loss of any species weakens the ecosystem that all species rely on for survival, including humans,” according to the National Wildlife Foundation.
During the Monarch Butterfly Festival, kids and adults learned the Milkweed plant, the only food source of butterflies and the only plant that butterflies lay their eggs on, has been wiped out by development and land management practices. Milkweed can be planted or just tossed in the form of a seed bomb.
For more information, visit www.pollinator.org or monarchwatch.org.