The amazing journey

Naturalist Wesely to lead program on monarch butterflies

MILANVILLE, PA — Naturalist Ed Wesely will present a program on the life cycle of the monarch butterfly at the Butterfly Barn Nature Center on Saturday, August 23 at 10:00 a.m.

Participants will have an opportunity to peer through a microscope at a caterpillar egg, listen to a caterpillar munch along a leaf and follow the migratory journey that monarchs take. They will learn how to tag monarch butterflies so their 2,200-mile autumn migration from the Delaware Valley to the mountains of central Mexico can help scientists study their decreasing populations. One of the butterflies that was tagged at the Butterfly Barn was actually found in Mexico a few years ago, and Wesely has a certificate to prove it.

Each year Wesely and Barbara Yeaman of the Butterfly Barn Nature Center rescue hundreds of monarch eggs and caterpillars from threatened milkweed colonies. Milkweed, a unique habitat and food source for monarch caterpillars, is on the decrease in the north, and forests are being cut down in the butterflies’ winter habitat in Mexico, as well. Learning how to protect this increasingly rare species is something you can do right here in your own back yard.

The program is free and open to the public.

For more information visit butterflybarn.org or call 570/226-3164.