All times eastern daylight savings time.
Monarch Butterfly Tagging
Description
Session 1: 12:00 p.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Session 2: 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.
Every year, over 300 million Monarch butterflies make the 2,000+ mile journey from Canada and North America to forests in California and Mexico. Vast amounts of nectaring flowers are required to fuel these southward journeys. Monarchs often stop on the north edge of large bodies of water before crossing the next morning and roosting trees and shrubs are used as resting sights at night. Changes to our landscape have begun to put these amazing insect populations in peril. Climate change, land development, industrialized agriculture, and pesticide use present new hurdles in this cross-country relay race which has been run for countless generations. As NICHES protects native ecosystems, retires developed land, and restores prairies, we are providing sanctuaries of islanded habitat within our fragmented landscape.
Join us on Sunday, September 12th at our Granville Sand Barrens property for a hike and presentation on the migration and life cycle of monarch butterflies. Event attendees will also take part in a citizen science project to tag these butterflies and help provide biologists with more insight into their migration patterns. The purpose of tagging monarchs is to associate the location of the original capture with the point of recovery for each butterfly. Citizen scientists record the date, location, monarch gender, and unique tag number for each fall-migrating monarch they tag, then submit this data to be used in research.
Who to Contact
Please email sam@nicheslandtrust.org to register for this event (participation limited to 12 individuals per session)
Location
How to Get There
From Lafayette/West Lafayette take South River Road, west across US 231for about 6.5 miles until you reach the sign for West Point at 700 W. Take 700 W across the Granville Bridge, then take the first road (75 S which is gravel) to the right. Go about 1.6 miles and watch on your left for a sign in the parking area.
You will pass the sign for the Roy Whistler Wildlife Area before you reach the Granville Sand Barrens parking area. It is best to go to the parking lot of NICHES’ Granville Sand Barrens and then walk back to the Roy Whistler Wildlife Area if you wish to visit both properties, as there is no parking area at Roy Whistler Wildlife Area, and trails connect the two properties.
