BA Monarch Movement supports conservation

The Monarch Butterfly, with its exquisite detail and stately beauty, is in danger of extinction as its population has steadily declined in recent years.

Known for their deep orange, black, and white-spotted wings, these all-important pollinators are on the decline, in part because of the loss of their host plant- milkweed. Ray Harral Nature Center Supervisor Miranda Adams said Monarchs only lay their eggs on milkweed. Their caterpillars depend on the plant as their sole food source until adulthood.

To preserve the Monarch Butterfly population, a citizens' committee, the Broken Arrow Monarch Movement, was formed several years ago to encourage residents, schools, businesses, and others to plant milkweed to improve monarch survival rates and promote local biodiversity.

"Our initiative is to encourage people and parks to grow milkweed in their gardens to support butterfly recovery," Adams said.

The organization has partnered with the City of Broken Arrow Parks and Recreation Department and Broken Arrow Public Schools to establish Monarch waystations across the community.

According to Adams, the Broken Arrow Monarch Movement supports monarch conservation in several ways.

"We have our monarch waystations here at Ray Harral Nature Center as an educational tool to introduce people to what a monarch waystation looks like and how it can be beautiful," she said. "And then we also provide our visitors with a wildflower seed mix that provides everything the monarch butterfly needs, including food sources and host plants."

There are several species of milkweed native to Oklahoma. Milkweed plants produce a milky substance that contains cardenolides, which are a type of toxin that is passed on from the caterpillar to the adult butterfly. It ensures that the monarch butterfly is unpalatable or toxic to birds or other predators.

"So, when they're consuming the milkweed, they have the toxin," Adams said. "They also have the bright colors to say, 'Hey, I don't taste good, please don't eat me.' They grow up to become the beautiful butterflies that we all know and love."

Each caterpillar consumes an entire milkweed plant down to the stem.

"Usually by the time they eat the whole plant, they're ready to turn into a butterfly," Adams said. "But for the plant, most of its energy is going to be underground in the root system, so it will just come back."

Milkweed flowers provide essential nectar for adult monarch butterflies, fueling reproduction and supporting their long migrations. Planting milkweed helps sustain monarch numbers and strengthens the ecosystem. Oklahoma is geographically important to monarch butterflies because it lies within the Central Flyway of their migration.

Monarchs travel south in late summer and early fall, then return north in the spring. Adams explained it this way.

"The ones that fly from Mexico, stop in Texas, and lay their eggs," she said. "Those eggs turn into butterflies. Then that butterfly continues its journey to Oklahoma and Kansas, lays an egg, and the egg eventually becomes a butterfly. It will fly to the northern U.S., lay an egg, and become a butterfly in Canada."

That is four or five generations.

In late summer and fall, they will begin flying back from Canada and spend the winter in Mexico.

"It is not a single animal making the journey, it's a generational effort," Adams said.

Monarch Butterflies are more than just a pretty insect. As pollinators, they transport pollen between flowers, enabling plants to reproduce and produce seeds and fruit.

"Without pollinators, we wouldn't have many of the foods that we love, which include most of our fruits, like apples, strawberries, and corn," Adams said.

As the Monarchs are migrating from Mexico, their wings become battered and worn.

"If we don't have milkweed here, they're coming from Mexico, they're tired, they are dying," Adams said. "They are looking for milkweed to lay that egg. If there is no milkweed, then that generation stops."

Residents who would like to plant a milkweed mix garden to benefit both the butterfly population and local pollination may receive free milkweed mix garden seeds at Ray Harral Nature Center and Park, 7101 S. 3rd St.