Community News

MONARCH BUTTERFLIES NEED OUR HELP

MARGARET CARNEY NOTES INVASIVE FIRE ANTS DEVOUR MONARCH EGGS

MARGARET CARNEY Column Metroland columnist Margaret Carney finds so much to discover and marvel at when exploring the great outdoors.

Did you let them slip by, like I did? Celebrating National Forest Week by walking in a woods? Marking National Tree Day by planting or at least hugging one? On World Rivers Day, I should have got out my canoe and paddled down the nearest stream. Too busy. So, I'm resolved to make World Habitat Day, Oct. 3, extra meaningful, and take at least one positive step to support biodiversity on our beautiful vibrant planet.

By planting milkweed seeds, host flower for endangered monarch butterflies and a rich nectar source for countless other pollinators. Or at least scoping out milkweed stands where I might harvest seeds when their dried pods split open and silken sails start carrying them off in the wind.

Late autumn is the best time to plant milkweed, seeds of which need the freeze and thaw of winter so they'll sprout in spring. To remove the fluff, shake them in a paper bag with a few coins, then cut a slit in the bottom of the bag to funnel out the seeds. Plant them knuckle-deep in your flower bed, cover with a quarter-inch of soil and water well. If you have hungry squirrels in the neighbourhood you might lay chicken wire overtop until the ground freezes.

While suburban sprawl and the spraying of herbicides and pesticides are wiping out monarch habitat all along their migration route, the butterflies face another problem: predation. "I've got a substantial milkweed patch in my garden that's been doing very well for the last couple of years, but butterfly numbers don't seem to reflect that," Craig Newton of Whitby told me in an email. "I watched a female lay at least 6-8 eggs on my plants one day and within five minutes the fire ants had eaten them all. Out at Mclaughlin Bay yesterday there was a tremendous amount of healthy and tender milkweed, yet in two hours of looking I found only one caterpillar. Every time I stopped to look, I noticed my boots overrun with ants. Perhaps the problem is the invasion of non-native ants."

Which is why another reader, Joanne Barnes of Oshawa, rescued eggs from her milkweed patch this summer, as soon as the monarch laying them flew away, and successfully raised butterflies indoors, as she has with caterpillars in years past. She wants me to encourage other readers to follow her example and "help get monarchs off the endangered species list." Joanne is so caring and committed that she's offering free milkweed pods from her own garden to anyone willing and able to plant them. For porch pickup, contact her at barnes.mail@rogers.com.

Nature queries: mcarney1490@gmail.com or 905725-2116.

OPINION

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2022-09-29T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-09-29T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://communitynews.pressreader.com/article/281547999769652

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