March 28, 2024

Group attempts to show importance of butterflies

Monarchs need milkweed to survive, enthusiast says

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When Heather Maki was growing up, she learned about Monarch butterflies from her grandmother.

In 2015, she’s trying to help educate her Jasper County neighbors about Monarchs —one beautiful creature at a time.

Maki has raised Monarch butterflies for more than 10 years, and even has her children involved in the hobby. By planting gardens that attract Monarch caterpillars and/or butterflies, and hunting for more caterpillars, enthusiasts can help bring the colorful flying insects to specific spots.

Butterflies are not as efficient as bees at pollinating plants and helping produce food — and oxygen-bearing plants. However, the insects are still an important part of the ecosystem, and feed on milkweed, so their numbers have gone down through the years as milkweed has become less common.

“We as a community have to set aside habitat for the Monarch butterfly,” Maki said. “They must have milkweed to survive. We have to stop mowing country ditches and having grater tractors demolishing milkweed plants.”

While there are many other ecological and environmental concerns besides butterflies and bees, such as mowing out milkweed that are mixed in with more disruptive or destructive non-native plants, enthusiasts continue to rally around Monarchs as if the butterflies were family members. Maki, along with fellow Newton-area resident Travis Padget, are administrators of a closed Facebook group called “Jasper County Monarch Enthusiasts.”

It’s grown to 155 members since it was created by Padget in February, and Maki would like to see a more formal, in-person Monarch organization develop. “It’s currently just a Facebook page, but I would love for it to turn in to more than that,” Maki said. “(Such as) get-togethers to plant milkweed in locations where it would thrive and not be sprayed or mowed down. I would also love to have a Monarch house at the Arboretum and have caterpillars and milkweed in an enclosure for people to view and learn more about saving monarchs from becoming instinct.”

Not only do butterflies pollinate, but they are also a strong and highly visible indicator of the health, plant nature and conditions at a specific site.

More butterflies means more of the conditions needed to bring them to that area. Also, there don’t seem to be very many sights in nature that get children interested in environmental science in a way that brightly colored Monarchs can captivate young students.

“I have donated caterpillars to Emerson Hough preschool and multiple elementary classes here in Newton,” Maki said. “When my kids were younger, they would love to hold and interact with the caterpillars, and my daughter even took some to school as her science fair project in sixth grade.”

Maki said the caterpillars can hold a child’s attention almost as well as the wing-waving of the fully developed butterflies.

“You could even get them to wave their heads up and down by hand movements,” she said. “I know it sounds crazy, but they really do.”

While Maki is quick to not criticize farmers or city, county or state employees maintaining land for any purpose, she’d like to see more areas set aside for milkweed growth.

“Monarchs are truly magnificent creatures,” Maki said. “I am still amazed by the whole process of their transformation.”

Maki said watching caterpillars build cocoons and then slowly become butterflies never ceases to be a sentimental process as well.

“I still think of my late grandmother every time I have one hatch,” she said.

Contact Jason W. Brooks at 641-792-3121 ext. 6532 or jbrooks@newtondailynews.com