Look who’s back
Descendants of released monarch butterflies starting to return to BBEMA office in Emerald
“It takes a lot of work, but you can take an old, desolate, train station, which is nothing but fill seeded with grass, and turn it into a viable (monarch) breeding ground … and habitat that can sustain future generations.” Tracy Brown
After four years of hatching, tagging and releasing monarch butterflies at its office in Emerald, the Bedeque Bay Environmental Management Association (BBEMA) is starting to see their descendants returning from Mexico for the first time.
The group announced this month that it is starting to collect monarch caterpillars from the milkweed gardens it has developed around its office.
Monarch butterflies have an epic migration route that takes them up and down North America every three generations.
They also imprint the area where they hatched on their descendants.
So the butterflies returning to the Emerald area are, mostly likely, descendants of those released by BBEMA.
It’s a good feeling to start to see all that work pay off, said Tracy Brown, BBEMA’s executive director.
“We were so excited when we saw them,” said
Brown.
“It takes a lot of work, but you can take an old, desolate, train station, which is nothing but fill seeded with grass, and turn it into a viable (monarch) breeding ground … and habitat that can sustain future generations,” she said.
BBEMA is collecting all the caterpillars they find to make them part of their breeding program.