City becomes ‘monarch waystation’

Part of Lorain has become a sanctuary for migrating butterflies.

Lorain City Council on Nov. 5 adopted a resolution commending the efforts of local park supporters to create a “Monarch Waystation,” which is a habitat suitable to be a rest stop for migrating monarch butterflies.

The city resolution credited the work of the Charleston Village Society Inc. historic preservation group and its leaders, Loraine Ritchey and Renee Dore.

They began the application process and donated money for a monarch waystation sign.

The legislation also named Joe Artim and city Utilities Department employee Ariel Vasquez, who grew the required plans and designed habitat areas located around Oberlin and Hamilton avenues and First and Second streets.

The land sits across from the city Utilities Department and is known as Settlers’ Watch, for the area first occupied by Lorain’s earliest settlers.

“This is a big deal,” said Councilman-at-Large Joe Koziura.

People take for granted bees and pollinating insects, but humans would not last long without them, Koziura said.

Dore was at the meeting to explain how the local program combines with work to create butterflyfriendly gardens around the country.

She also thanked the city for the nod.

Settlers Watch sits on city property, but largely is maintained by volunteers, Dore said.

“The monarchs fly very far in their migration,” she said. “Having milkweed along the southern shore of Lake Erie, after they fly across the lake ... it gives them something to eat and also a place to rest as they continue their migration.”

Dore credited Artim, a volunteer, as the constant gardener of Settlers Watch, and Vasquez for help preparing the gardens.

The city also received a certificate of appreciation and a sign to post there.

Dore quipped that the butterflies won’t read it, but people will.

Lorain, as station No. 22277, joins a number of monarch waystations certified through Monarch Watch, a nonprofit education, conservation and research program operated by the University of Kansas.

There are at least 17 in the county and two more in nearby Vermilion, according to the Monarch Watch website.

It also describes the migrations of monarch butterflies across North America.

“Each fall, hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies migrate from the United States and Canada to overwintering areas in Mexico and California where they wait out the winter until conditions favor a return flight in the spring,” the website said. “The monarch migration is truly one of the world’s greatest natural wonders, yet it is threatened by habitat loss in North America — at the overwintering sites and throughout the spring and summer breeding range as well.”

The problem stems from new construction wiping out the fields that grow milkweed and other flowers that are nectar sources for the butterflies.

To counteract the loss of habitat and assist the butterfly population, Monarch Watch asks people to create habitats “in home gardens, at schools, businesses, parks, zoos, nature centers, along roadsides and on other unused plots of land.”

“Without a major effort to restore milkweeds to as many locations as possible, the monarch population is certain to decline to extremely low levels,” according to Monarch Watch.

The designation is the third for Settlers’ Watch.

The space is a certified wildlife habitat garden, meeting criteria of the National Wildlife Federation.

The park also meets criteria to be a pollinator garden, as defined by the National Pollinator Garden Network, a collaboration that has created a million pollinator garden challenge in the United States.

Settlers’ Watch includes the Heroes Walk, a tribute to Lorain service members who died in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nearby, is the memorial that sits across the street from the home of U.S. Navy Adm. Ernest J. King.

The latest designation is “quite an honor ... especially when you think it was nothing but a dump,” Ritchey said about Settlers’ Watch.

For years, the site was a vacant lot that became a dumping ground.

“Now, it’s attracting birds and bees and pollinators, with very little money,” Ritchey said.