36 NEBRASKAland • APRIL 2015
Raising
Monarchs
A School Project
Turned to a Passion
E
ach year, millions of school
children learn about one of
the amazing feats of the natural
world – metamorphosis – with
the help of one of America's best
known insects: the monarch
butterfly.
Shauna Groenewold's interest
in monarchs started on that
same front 20 years ago when
she helped her daughter, Kalyn,
raise them from egg to caterpillar
to butterfly for a science fair
project.
"I initially discovered how easy
it was, and it was fun. I enjoyed
it. So I just kept doing it," she
said.
Like frogs and salamanders,
butterflies became another on
the list of "weird pets" for the
mother and daughter who were
allergic to pet dander. And that's
how Groenewold describes
raising them. "It's sort of like
taking care of any other pet." she
said, "except not as demanding."
Feeding monarchs requires
milkweed, and lots of it. Without
a ready supply, you won't be
able to support the larvae.
Groenewold and her husband,
Mike, a horticulturist, have plenty
of milkweed and other pollinator-
friendly plants in their flower
garden, which is certified as
a Monarch Waystation though
MonarchWatch.org.
The Groenewolds grow swamp,
butterfly and common milkweed.
"Some people don't like common
milkweed because it's been
associated with weeds," she
said. "But more and more people
are incorporating it in their
landscape because they realize it
has really pretty flowers and it's
so fragrant."
Groenewold usually finds
her first monarch egg in
May when her milkweed
plants are only 3 inches tall.
While monarchs have few
predators, rearing them in
captivity does increase their
likelihood of survival. But
Groenewold, who has reared
as many as 58 monarchs
in a single year, doesn't
expect her work to make a
difference in the continental
population on that front.
Raising awareness of the
species decline and its
habitat needs, however,
might. So she speaks to
garden groups and others,
and takes adult butterflies
to work and gives them to
coworkers so their children can
release them.
And for the past two summers
she has participated in a
nationwide tagging program
through Monarch Watch and
put small stickers on about 30
monarchs she has either reared
or caught in her yard. She hasn't
had a tag recovered in Mexico
yet, but knows the odds are long
since there are millions that
make the journey and only 1
percent of all tags are recovered.
"I'm hopeful," she said. ■
Shauna Groenewold clips a leaf from a milkweed plant on which a monarch butterfly
laid an egg in her backyard butterfly garden in Lincoln.
The egg laden leaf is placed in plastic container
to hatch.
Monarch eggs are nearly small enough to
fit through the eye of a needle.
