HELP TAG AND RELEASE MONARCH BUTTERFLIES

News release from Friends of the Garden, Springfield, Missouri

For more information, contact Lisa Bakerink at 417.763.0415, George Deatz, 840.5472, or Jeanne Duffey at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it [Note: I have photos of last year’s event. Please let me know if you would like to view them. Thanks, Jeanne]

HELP TAG AND RELEASE MONARCH BUTTERFLIES OCT. 1, 2011,

AT NATIVE BUTTERFLY HOUSE

IN NATHANAEL GREENE/CLOSE MEMORIAL PARK

At last year’s event, Lisa Bakerink and other Friends of the Garden volunteers demonstrated how to tag a monarch butterfly. At this year’s Monarch Tagging Day from 2 until 4 p.m. on October 1, 2011, visitors of all ages to the Dr. Bill Roston Butterfly House in Nathanael Greene/Close Memorial Park will tag and release the vividly colored, recognizable winged insects themselves.

The Friends of the Garden-sponsored event is free and open to the public although donations are appreciated and encouraged.

 Monarch Watch Premigration Newsletter July 2011 (558.89 kB)

“We will show children and adults how to place a stickered tag on a migrating monarch’s hind wing and send it on its way to its over-wintering site in Mexico, about 1,500 miles from Springfield,” said Bakerink. The tags include a unique tag number, the date, the sex of the butterfly, whether it was raised or captured in the wild and its Springfield location.

“Everyone who releases a butterfly will be sent home with the data needed to check on the status of his or her butterfly,” said Bakerink. “Most will not be recovered on their migration route, but if you want to check on your butterfly, you can send the tag information to monarchwatch.org at the University of Kansas where this citizen-scientist research program was started in 1992.”

During the past ten years, she has tagged and released more than 500 monarch butterflies. A butterfly Bakerink tagged was recovered in El Rosario, Mexico, a trip of 1,563 miles.

Every fall, millions of monarch butterflies, the only known butterfly that engages in migratory activity, fly from the eastern U.S. and Canada to central Mexico where they over winter as clusters in high-elevation oyamel fir forests. The purpose of tagging is to capture data and study migration patterns to further research on monarch population dynamics and to protect monarch habitats throughout North America. The program is nearly 20 years old.

Monarch Tagging Day is the last event of the season to take place in the Dr. Bill Roston Butterfly House, which will close on Sunday, October 2, until next spring. According to Coordinator Scott Cunningham, more than 15,000 people visited the popular attraction this season.

Friends of the Garden members design, create and maintain many of the more than two dozen botanical gardens that dot the countryside of the 114-acre public park and arboretum located at 2400 S. Scenic Ave. in southwest Springfield.

Tax-deductible $25 annual memberships and contributions to the Friends of the Garden Growth and Maintenance Fund can be sent to P.O. Box 8566, Springfield MO 65801. The web site is FriendsoftheGarden.org.