Feb. 22 webinar to study butterfly
The Witt Stephens Jr. Central Arkansas Nature Center will host a virtual webinar for anyone interested in learning more about the monarch butterfly and its migration throughout North America.
The webinar will be held on the Zoom meeting platform at 6 p.m. Feb. 22, according to the Arkansas Wildlife Weekly newsletter.
Lori Monday, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission regional educator who is coordinating the webinar with the nature center, said she got the idea after watching a similar presentation on the agency’s new “Wild Science” YouTube series.
“I watched the program Allison Fowler, the AGFC’s Wildlife Diversity Program coordinator, conducted for that seminar, and it spurred the idea for another public program on monarchs,” Monday said.
Instead of just covering the basics of monarch biology and research, this workshop will focus more on the ways people from all walks of life can help conserve migratory birds and butterflies as well as pollinator species, which are critical to the world’s agriculture.
“People can plant native gardens; eliminate the use of pesticides in their flowerbeds and home gardens; and promote milkweeds and other plants critical to these butterflies during their migration to help them along the way,”
Monday said.
“Allison also will show you where to find and enter monarch butterfly sightings to the mobile app iNaturalist to help researchers get more insight into each year’s migration.”
According to a United States Department of Agriculture
website: “The annual migration of North America’s monarch butterfly is a unique and amazing phenomenon. The monarch is the only butterfly known to make a two-way migration as birds do. Unlike other butterflies that can overwinter as larvae, pupae, or even as adults in some species, monarchs cannot survive the cold winters of northern climates. Using
environmental cues, the monarchs know when it is time to travel south for the winter. Monarchs use a combination of air currents and thermals to travel long distances. Some fly as far as 3,000 miles to reach their winter home.”
Visit www.facebook.com/ centralarkansasnaturecenter for more information on workshops held by the AGFC’s Education Division, or visit its virtual nature center at www.agfcnaturecenter. com.