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Project Monarch butterfly
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By bardofely on January 16th 2007 at 8:49 AM
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I love Monarch butterflies and some time back I had a plan - to grow Milkweed the food plant for the larvae in pots on my balcony. I had some seeds and got 2 plants growing when a female Monarch found them and laid 10 eggs. I knew right away there wouldn‘t be enough leaves on my half-grown plants but was delighted my project was underway.
When the caterpillars hatched I started to look for Milkweed and was scouring flower borders on my travels in my neighbourhood but in vain and after a week or so when the caterpillars were getting a lot bigger and the leaves were vanishing fast I had to make 2 trips all the way down south to get more food for my hungry brood of Monarch larvae.
As they became full size I had been putting them in an empty water bottle to pupate and nine had been safely housed in there, however, the tenth I sadly lost because it had finished what was left on the plant and had gone to look for more on my balcony. Nevertheless I knew that 9 out of 10 is well above the number that normally survive in nature.
In a couple of weeks they started to hatch and so far 8 adult Monarchs have been released. I had found out that this butterfly which is famous for its vast numbers that migrate from Canada and the northern States down to California and Mexico is now endangered in America and that websites exist as conservation projects to help save it and to supply Milkweed seeds of which there are many varieties.
My friend Kirsty who works at a school in Agua Dulce is getting a project going there and Michael who works at a botanic garden in Holland is sending me seeds and cuttings of the vitally needed foodplant.
Roger my editor at the Tenerife Sun was so taken with the idea of helping ensure the future of this wonderful insect that he has asked me to write a full article on the subject.
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