Making a Difference For Monarchs
- Kevin Kilbane
- Aug 25
- 6 min read
Ways you can help save monarch butterflies
They flutter into our lives each summer, bouncing along cheerily as we hike a trail or weed our gardens or flowerbeds.
Their large size and orange and black colors make monarch butterflies one of the most recognized insect species. They also inspire hope and perseverance with the amazing story of their 2,000-mile migration to winter in Mexico.
You can celebrate monarchs and learn more about them at the Monarch Festival from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sept. 13 at Eagle Marsh nature preserve, 6801 Engle Road. Admission is free for Little River Wetlands Project members and children and $3 per person for others.
The monarch population fluctuates from year to year, but overall it has been declining for the past two decades. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service projects the migratory monarch population east of the Rocky Mountains currently has a 56% to 74% probability of becoming extinct by year 2080. Migratory monarchs living west of the Rockies have a 99% chance of going extinct by that year.
“Our assessment is based on evaluating the following threats: the ongoing impacts from loss and degradation of breeding, migratory and overwintering habitat; exposure to insecticides; and effects of climate change,” the agency said on its website, www.fws.gov.
The Fish & Wildlife Service has proposed listing the monarch as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The agency, which hopes to make a decision by the end of this year, currently is reviewing input received during a public comment period that ended in mid-May, it said on its website, fws.gov. Staff also are considering any new information still being received.
Regardless of how that process turns out, you can take steps on your own to help monarchs.
Grow monarch food
Monarch butterflies need milkweed plants to survive. They lay their eggs on the underside of milkweed plant leaves. When the caterpillars hatch, they eat only milkweed leaves.
To grow milkweed in your yard, pick a sunny spot. You can plant seedlings or start plants from seed. If you use seeds, plant them in the fall so they go through the cold of winter. The seeds will sprout in the spring. It can take two or three years to establish a patch of milkweed plants, which will spread.
Your efforts can help the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which launched a project with 29 states to add more than a billion milkweed plants to the eastern United States by the year 2038.
You also can enhance your landscaping with native plants that have nectar-producing flowers in the late summer and early fall. Monarchs need to start feeding on flower nectar within a couple of days of emerging from their chrysalis as an adult butterfly, said Ronnie Greenberg, a LRWP volunteer who has been raising monarchs for several years. Adults that emerge in late summer also need to store energy for their upcoming migratory flight to Mexico for the winter.
Good late-summer blooming, native flowering plant choices include asters, blazing star, ironweed, blue-stemmed goldenrod and Joe-Pye weed, Greenberg said.
Join in citizen science
For more than a decade, Little River Wetlands Project volunteers have participated in the Monarch Larva Monitoring Project. Organized by the Monarch Joint Venture and the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum, the project asks people to track and report numbers of monarch eggs, larva and milkweed plants.
LRWP volunteers typically walk a section of trail at Eagle Marsh or the Arrowhead Preserves to count and examine milkweed plants within an arm’s length on either side of the trail, said Greenberg, who until this year had been the data keeper for monitoring results reported by the volunteers. The volunteers check the same section of trail weekly and report how many milkweed plants they see, how many monarch eggs on the milkweed plants, how many caterpillars (called instars) and their stage of development, any chrysalises discovered, and the largest number of adult monarchs they see at one time.
Volunteers reported seeing 196 eggs, 94 instars and 79 adult monarchs last summer at Eagle Marsh, the compiled data shows. Participants found 124 eggs, 82 instars and 21 adults at the Arrowhead Preserves.
Raise monarchs
You also can try raising monarchs from eggs or caterpillars to adulthood. It’s not too complicated, though there is some scientific debate about its value.
Only one in 10 monarch eggs typically survives to adulthood in the wild, the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation reports on its website, xerces.org. However, raising large numbers of monarchs in captivity could introduce diseases into the wild population and reduce its genetic diversity, the Xerces Society and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service both said on their websites. Captive raising also could impact the fitness level of adult butterflies and whether they can migrate successfully to wintering sites.
Both organizations, though, recognize the educational value of people raising a few monarchs. That effort “can foster lifelong connections to nature,” the Fish & Wildlife Service noted. The agency also doubts current levels of captive raising will impact the overall wild monarch population.
Getting started
The process of raising a monarch from egg to adult butterfly takes about 28 days. To do it, you will need a few things:
Access to milkweed. Varieties include common, swamp and butterfly milkweeds, LRWP volunteer Cindy Taylor said. Taylor, who has raised monarchs for several years, collaborates with a few neighbors to all raise monarchs.
Clean, clear containers with lids to house the caterpillars so they don’t crawl away and they’re safe from predators. The lids or containers must allow in fresh air through tiny air holes or via a larger cutout covered with fine mesh to allow.
Paper towels
Taylor and Greenberg both use deli-style plastic food containers to hold leaves containing monarch eggs as well as the caterpillars, or instars, after they hatch. Taylor also uses shoebox-size plastic bins and larger mesh butterfly containers to hold caterpillars once they get larger. Greenberg keeps large caterpillars in an old aquarium with a wire mesh lid.
They both put a piece of paper towel in the bottom of each container to catch any caterpillar poop. The paper towel also can maintain moisture in the container. Greenberg keeps the paper towel piece slightly damp. Taylor mists the contents of her containers each morning and evening, if needed, to prevent caterpillars and leaves from drying out.
Day-to-day care
Once you are ready, Greenberg and Taylor recommend these steps:
Examine your milkweed plants for monarch eggs during summer months. The eggs look like white, football-shaped orbs about the size of a pinhead. Female monarchs lay them on the underside of milkweed leaves, often toward the leaf bottom. Clip the leaf from the plant and put it in one of your containers.
Check the container at least once or twice a day. Eggs can hatch within a few days. After the caterpillar emerges (you may need a magnifying glass to see it), use scissors to cut the portion of the milkweed leaf holding the caterpillar and lay it on a fresh milkweed leaf. The caterpillar will first eat the outer portion of its egg case. Then it will be ready to chow down on fresh milkweed leaves.
Watch for when to add a fresh milkweed leaf to the container. Leaves may stay edible for a couple of days when the caterpillars are small. Once they get bigger, they may eat most of a leaf in a day’s time.
Mist the container contents if dry or test if the paper towel needs slight dampening. Also check for pests, such as ants and aphids, that could harm the eggs or caterpillars.
What goes in eventually comes out, so clean up the caterpillar poop, which is called frass. If it is on the paper towel, you can just switch out the old one for a new one. If it’s on the milkweed leaf, add a new leaf and remove the old one after the caterpillar moves onto the fresh food.
Periodically, the caterpillars may climb the sides of the container to molt. They wriggle out of a smaller outer skin so they can grow into a larger one. They will go through five instar stages over about a week to nearly three weeks. Before the final instar stage, move the caterpillar into a container large enough to accommodate an adult butterfly when it emerges from its pupa-stage chrysalis.
After a few days in the final instar stage, the caterpillar will climb up to the top of the container, attach itself and encase itself in a protective chrysalis. It will hang there for 10 to 15 days as it transforms into an adult butterfly.
Once the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis, it will need room to rest and to dry its wings. Taylor recommends releasing butterflies soon after emergence and near trees so they can land, rest and soak up sunshine.
Not every egg will hatch and not every caterpillar will survive. Last year, however, Taylor and her neighbors had an 85% survival rate from monarch eggs to adults.
Both Taylor and Greenberg find raising monarchs very rewarding.
“It’s a new life,” Taylor said. “You get to see it grow. Releasing a monarch is just, I don’t know, it makes you happy. It feels like the world is a little better place than it seems to be right now. … It brings me joy, I know that for sure.”
