116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Orange Alert rally about saving Monarch butterflies
Event is scheduled for Sunday
Orange Alert. No exclamation point needed.
The image signals the peril of the monarch butterfly, whose eastern U. S. population plummeted 59 percent last year to the second-lowest over-wintering population on record.
The Marion-based Monarch Research Project will host an Orange Alert rally on Sunday to fire up local conservationists and provide them with the information and materials they need to help the iconic insect recover.
(OK. I said I would never write or speak the overused and often misused word “iconic.” But it’s apt in reference to the insect visualized by most people when they hear the word “butterfly.”)
Speakers include two experts — master Gardner Wanda Ohrt and Monarch Research Project Manager Augie Bergstrom — and your inexpert correspondent.
Bergstrom will underscore the need to help monarchs survive habitat destruction, pesticide exposure and extreme weather, most easily and pleasantly through the establishment of a Monarch Zone.
Vegetation beds
The Monarch Research Project is developing vegetation beds designed to attract and benefit specific pollinator insects.
Seeds for the recommended plants will be available at the May 19 Orange Alert rally, and demonstration plots will be on display later at the project’s facility.
The “Monarch Butterfly Haven” will consist of four host plants species: common milkweed, swamp milkweed, whorled milkweed and butterfly weed. Nectar sources include black-eyed Susan, purple coneflower and New England aster.
The “Swallowtail Sanctuary” will consist of host plants parsley, fennel, dill and golden Alexander and nectar sources prairie smoke, purple prairie clover and rough blazing star.
— Orlan Love
Since its founding in 2015, the Monarch Research Project has helped establish nearly 200 Monarch Zones — in which landowners raise and release butterflies — in and around Linn County.
“People can take impactful action in their backyards. That’s the point we want to drive across,” Bergstrom said
Plants and biotents needed to establish a Monarch Zone will be available at the rally, he said.
Ohrt of Cedar Rapids will discuss the host plants and nectar plants needed to attract butterflies to backyards and gardens, with tips on selection and cultivation.
“Anybody can do it,” said Ohrt, who will explain how to “start from scratch.”
In addition to host plants — for example, for the monarch, milkweed, the only plant adults will lay their eggs on, the only plant its larva will eat — Ohrt recommends the purple cone flower and the New England aster as ideal nectar plants for beginners.
“They are super beneficial and super easy to grow,” she said.
Ohrt said she also will endeavor to counter the misconception that native plants detract from a landscape’s appearance.
“They are not weeds. They are beautiful and beneficial,” she said.
“Monarchs are our canary in the coal mine. That 59 percent year-over-year decline is our warning that we have to take action,” said Monarch Research Project founder Clark McLeod.
As a long-time Monarch Zone proprietor here is Quasqueton, I can attest that rearing monarchs in the protected environment of a biotent — watching caterpillars transform into jewel-like chrysalises and emerge as freshly minted butterflies — is fun and rewarding.
More than that, McLeod said, it’s effective.
“For every one you release early in the season, with its offspring multiplying through subsequent generations, you will produce 10 that can fly to Mexico in the fall,” he said.
The free May 19 program runs from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at the Monarch Research Station, 4970 Lakeside Rd., Marion.
Though the 40 6-person tables were quickly spoken for, McLeod said, “Tell the people to come. We have lots of chairs.” Attendees are encouraged to pre-register at monarchresearch.org
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