NORTH PARK — Don't forget to write: butterflies from North Park Village Center are on their journey to Mexico, a trip that will require them to fly thousands of miles.
On Sunday at the center at 5801 N. Pulaski Rd., a number of butterflies were released as part of it's Monarchpalooza 2015. In all, the center has raised, captured, recorded and released at least 1,000 butterflies since March when the insects typically first makes their way south from Canada along their migration path to their wintering grounds in Mexico.
"Some of these insects started in Canada, they're going to fly across the United States, all the way to Mexico. So this is truly an international insect, a true ambassador," said Sean Shaffer, a naturalist with center.
Shaffer said exactly how they know where to go is somewhat of a mystery: "This insect goes across our whole country, and we don't know how they do it."
"They've never been to Mexico before — their last relatives were in Mexico were their great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandkids. So that's why we're doing this study," Shaffer said.
On Sunday, participants became volunteer "citizen scientists" for a day — schoolchildren got a chance to see and touch butterflies and their parents received a better understanding of how everyday activities may affect the life cycle of monarchs.
Butterflies are "like the canary in the coal mine," said Jessy Zich, one of three naturalists at the nature center who have taken turns conducting tagging-and-release activities. Premature deaths or health problems may reflect ways humans are influencing the environment.
"On the one hand, you can say, 'Oh, it's just a bug, what does that have to do with habitat loss in Chicago, when it's not as prevalent here as it is in Mexico?' " said Zich. South of the border illegal logging and mining in the forests where they spend the winter can disrupt the butterflies.
But their deaths can also be related to pesticide use and genetically modified crops, Zich said. "If these butterflies are dying because of the pesticides we use to protect our food, do we really want to put that in our bodies?" Zich said.
(The World Health Organization says that genetically modified crops do not pose a health hazard to humans. But some researchers say that because the crops are engineered to withstand higher use of pesticides, they adversely affect butterflies. A discussion of the issue can be found here.)
Some scientists say that while the butterfly itself is not endangered, its migration pattern may be imperiled due to pesticide use along its migration path, and habitat loss at their roosting grounds in Mexico.
Zich says she's raised, captured and tagged at least 600 butterflies since the spring.
The nature center will turn over their research to the University of Kansas Monarch Watch.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has allocated $1.2 million into monarch butterfly research, which organizations can use for education activities, such as distributing milkweed seeds and the yearly Monarchpalooza.
The monarch is the state butterfly of at least seven states, including Illinois. It gets its name from a ring found near the top of their chrysalis, which glows gold when it's near the time for them to emerge — when the chrysalis turns green to black. It is the only butterfly known to have a migration pattern, much like birds.
Among the butterflies that participants launched Sunday were two wild-caught monarchs found by children walking the preserve. Check out the videoes to see them attach a coded sticker tag to the butterflies and serve as "launch pads" for their release.
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