Garden Club of LBI raising awareness for monarch butterflies

Photo via LBI Garden Club
Garden Club member Julie Alloway plants
milkweed at the Surf City breeding station.

To help revive the monarch butterfly population that has declined significantly in recent years, the Garden Club of Long Beach Island’s Birds and Wildlife committee, led by Judie Alloway, has installed monarch breeding stations up and down the Island. Two sites are operational so far, including one outside ScoJo’s Restaurant in Surf City and another at the Beach Haven Public Library.

A main contributor to the rapid decline of monarchs, which are the only butterflies known to make a two-way migration just as birds do, is the loss of milkweed due to over-development as well as the widespread use of herbicides. Milkweed leaves are the monarch caterpillars’ sole food source.

The garden club’s new breeding stations are equipped with two types of milkweed that are best suited for the local area: Aslepias incarnate, a pale pink-to-purple variety, and Asclepias tuberosa, which are bright orange.

Monarch butterflies, which cannot survive the cold winters in the north, make an astonishing 3,000-mile migration from the U.S. and Canada to Mexico each year. Although the number of monarchs returning to Mexico this past winter was 3½ times greater than the previous year, “we cannot become complacent,” said Teresa Hagen, a member of the garden club.

“Monarch populations are measured in acres, and while last winter’s population covered 10 acres and was a measurable improvement, it is still lower than the 44 acres covered in 1995,” she stated, adding that in those 20 years, between 1995 and 2015, the number of monarchs in the eastern U.S. decreased by more than 90 percent.

The monarch migration, which many people believe is one of the most magnificent natural wonders of the world, is in danger of vanishing.

“There is something we can do, and this spring the garden club did it,” Hagen said.

Educational information to inform the public about the importance of planting milkweed, which types are best for LBI and what to look for once the monarch has laid her eggs has been provided by the garden club and can be found at ScoJo’s and the library.

— Kelley Anne Essinger

This article was published in The SandPaper.