nature
“ THE MOST IMPORTANT THING I WANT MY CHILDREN TO TAKE AWAY IS THAT THEIR ACTIONS HAVE AN EFFECT ON THEENVIRONMENT .” KATHLEEN WHALEN warmer climate of the Sierra Madre mountains inMexico .
The epic flight has long fascinated scientists and nature observers .
Rick Mikula , an author and breeder of butterflies who has appeared as aguest on TV shows on Animal Planet and Discovery Channel , has studied monarchs for more than 40 years .
“ They get a lot of well-deserved PR ,” says Mikula , of Hazleton , Pennsylvania .
“ Here ’ s a family doing something creative that they don ’ t have to pay admission to do ,” he adds , referring to the Whalens .“ And it ’ s in their backyard , and you know that their children will be explaining it to their grandchildren .”
Whalen and her boys raise the insects by first hunting for eggs deposited by adult butterflies on leaves of milkweed in the backyard .
The eggs are tiny — about the size of apencil tip . If the boys happen to spot one , Whalen says , they snip or pull off the leaf onwhich it is found . The leaves are then placed in a glass container until the larvae hatch , she says . After gorging on milkweed for two weeks , she says , a caterpillar is mature enough to form a chrysalis .
“ My mom does it some days , and I do it some days ,” Michael says of hunting for eggs .
“ We take turns , right ?” she answers , proudly .
Michael correctly points out the butterfly ’ s proboscis , which the insect uses like a straw to slurp up a flower ’ s juice .
A sprig of butterfly bush is standing upright in an 8-ounce bottle of water in the terrarium , and the insect has the entire plant to itself . Whalen says it has been a slower than-usual summer in terms of the number of butterflies arriving to her family ’ s
AJOURNEY ( Top ) Amonarch caterpillar in its fifth instar ( stage of growth ); ( above ) Michael Whalen , 5 , watches as amonarch butterfly lights on his shirt before flying into the wild for the first time .
backyard , and that last year she and her boys raised and released 70 of the colorful bugs . But , she says , “ If you plant milkweed , you ’ ll have monarchs . It ’ s really important for people to know how simple it is .”
In August , the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Switzerland added the migratory monarch butterfly to the “ red list ” of threatened species due to logging , climate change and use ofpesticides . ■
32 FALL 2022 WAYNE MAGAZINE