Chasing butterflies

[aayala]

Hello Everyone,

This is my first posting but I've been browsing the Monarch Watch site for a few years now and have learned alot from all of you. I'd like to share my rearing experience. It's been nothing short of wonderful and what made it more special to me was that I was able to share it with so many people.

After three years of loading my yard with butterfly weed and watching the cats devour my plants and enjoying the monarchs flutter around, I finally decided to capture a cat about to go into its J-shape to watch the full cycle. I placed it in a small container and took it to work with me thinking that I'd be able to watch it better there. Well everyone in the office got interested and that little cat got a lot of attention.

I work at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, TX in the School of Medicine. There are about 12,000 employess and thanks to a journalist that works for our monthly magazine, the Impact, our butterfly journey was published on the front page both online and in print. So not only did my office of 16 staff enjoy the butterfly rearing but the whole campus did.

By the end of the summer I had released 55-60 healthy monarchs. Some at home and some in the office. This link is to the article. The writer did a great job on the story. Hope you enjoy.

http://www.utmb.edu/impact/stories/06SEPT11/butterflies.htm

Annette

[crittergitter]

That was a great way to educate more people about the habitat and life cycle of the Monarch.
My picture was posted in the local newspaper this summer too. I was eating spinach salad with a friend whose backyard supplied some of my milkweed. She thought the spinach and milkweed looked the same. She snapped a photo of us--the caterpillars that I had found on the plants and me eating the salad. The newspaper titled it 'caterpillar salad". Really it was Lunch with the caterpillars!!:)