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Saving the Monarchs Community Scientists Provide Backyard Data for Field Museum Project by Sheryl DeVore
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Field Museum community scientist project may help determine if gardens like the one Judith Rice tends in her Skokie yard provide what monarch butterflies need to thrive. In two years of participation, she’s documented the iconic black-and-orange butterfly’s eggs and caterpillars munching on milkweed leaves in her yard. She’s also given away milkweeds to family and friends to grow in their yards. “I had been reading about the decline in the population of monarchs,” Rice says. “I thought it was cool The Field Museum had this community science project. I feel like I’m doing something for the environment. Monarchs are just so fascinating. If what I’m doing helps increase their population, that makes me happy.” Monarchs require nutrition during migration, as well as places to lay their eggs to keep the species thriving. That means they need blooming plants with nectar to provide them energy as well as milkweed, the specific plant upon which their young will feed as they grow and become adults.
Monarch egg on milkweed at the Field Museum. Photo by Urusla Avarado-Miller
“We are working to understand what a successful urban monarch butterfly garden looks like,” says Erika Hasle, a conservation ecologist with The Field Museum (FieldMuseum.org). She is guiding the community science monarch project, now in its third year. Last summer, Rice and 178 other volunteers in Chicago, the northern and southern suburbs and parts of Indiana documented the number of monarch eggs and caterpillars found in their gardens and the number of milkweed stems in their yards. Anyone with a milkweed plant can participate. It doesn’t matter if it’s on a balcony, rooftop, in a huge garden or small garden. All the data gathered is helpful. “There are two monarch populations in the United States; those west of the Rockies, and those east of the Rockies,” Hasle says. “The western population, measured at around 1.2 million butterflies in 1997, has fallen to only 1,914 individuals in 2020, as measured by the Xerces Society (Xerces.org).” Hasle says. “That’s very serious.” “The eastern population has declined by about 80 percent,” she continues. “Recent modeling shows that under current conditions, eastern monarch populations could expePhoto by Steven D. Bailey
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LEFT: Monarch caterpillar on butterfly weed.
