No, eagle-eyed Faithful Reader, you are right:
Technically speaking, that’s not a monarch butterfly itself, but a facsimile of
one that was part of a table centerpiece. But I learned much about this
beautiful, elusive creature up at the Chautauqua Institution in upstate New
York last Friday, at a luncheon held by its Bird, Tree and Garden (BTG) Club.
The kind of monarch caterpillar I saw as a kid is
becoming far harder to find for today’s youngsters, I discovered at a
presentation given at the luncheon. In fact, monarch butterfly populations have
declined by nearly 90% over the last 20 years. A big reason for the decreae:
herbicides that kill the milkweed plants on which this insect feeds in its
annual migration, in late summer, from the U.S. and southern Canada down to
Mexico.
Chautauqua will be doing its part to keep the
monarch butterfly alive, becoming for the insect a giant habitat—a provider
of resources where it can reproduce and migrate. It is hoped that
waystations will be located all over the grounds by the start of next season for this purpose.
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