8
Wednesday, November 23, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
showy milkweed plants
were planted over the last
two weeks throughout the
Ochoco National Forest.
Now, that may not sound
like much, but when those
plants grow to maturity,
there can be up to 20 mon-
arch caterpillars munching
away on the leaves of each
plant. Then, when the mon-
archs morph into adults,
they will tank up on the
rich nectar in the milkweed
blossoms.
Thirteen-hundred milk-
weed plants in the ground
means they had to have 1,300
holes to be placed in. That
means that someone had to
dig 1,300 holes, and for those
who accomplished that feat
you can bet your bottom dol-
lar they felt it when they got
home that night.
Susie Werts, a dedicated
teacher at Sisters Middle
School, has taken it upon
herself and encouraged her
students to join her to dig a
lot of holes and plant native
milkweed, plus native wild-
flower plants, creating a
monarch waystation at the
old greenhouse site at the
middle school.
That all come into focus
with the news that a brand-
new adult monarch she kept
safe in a screened enclosure
in her waystation went on
a record-breaking journey
of 700 miles right after she
tagged and released it from
her hands (see related story,
page 1).
That monarch not only
went to its wintering location
in Carpinteria, California,
it set a record doing it: 700
miles in 56 days. Just the
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
The great
travelers
Even if there’s nothing
but skepticism about what’s
causing our great old Earth
to warm up, there is no
question that a whole lot of
people in the US-of-A are
answering the call to help the
signature butterfly of North
America, the monarch.
As soon as the call went
out that this rare, remark-
able and vanishing but-
terfly might end up on the
Endangered Species List, a
suggestion was made to cre-
ate monarch waystations.
Schools, service clubs, con-
servation organizations, gov-
ernment municipalities and
the good old general public
went to work building them.
Milkweed is the key to
monarch survival and repro-
duction. They cannot repro-
duce on any other plant
species; milkweed is it and
in this part of their range
Showy Milkweed, Asclepias
speciosa is the best.
An email went out the
other day from MACO
(Monarch Advocates of
Central Oregon), with the
news that 1,300 native
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PHOTO BY JIM ANDERSON
Journey went on a very long one — 700 miles.
When that stage of growth
is finalized, the caterpillars
attach themselves to stems
or leaves and transform into
a silken chrysalis. Ten days
later, a stunning orange-and-
black butterfly emerges and
flies away.
When the sun begins to
rise from its southern bed of
winter, the monarch becomes
restless: time to move back to
its summer haunts. That gen-
eration starts north, arrives
at the first milkweed patch
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math of that journey is mind-
boggling; 12.5 miles per
day, and in order to make
such a journey in that short
a time it meant the insect
probably went straight-line
Sisters-to-California.
That means that incred-
ible insect—weighing less
than an ounce — had to fly
over (or through) the Sierra
Nevada, after negotiating the
Eastern Oregon mountains
and high desert. What did it
refuel on along the way?
How does that magnifi-
cent flyer know where to go?
The larva (caterpillar) was
reared in a private milkweed
colony in Klamath Falls.
Werts purchased it along
with four others and placed
them in her waystation’s
screened container, where
they munched their way into
the chrysalis phase.
They were protected from
the ever-watchful paper
wasps that capture butterfly
larvae and take them to their
nests to feed to their children.
And there are other threats.
Fewer than one out of every
10 eggs laid by the female
will survive to become an
adult butterfly.
Of the five larvae, Werts
got only two adult monarchs.
Three of the caterpillars had
already been parasitized by
tiny tachnid flies.
About four days after a
momma monarch lays her
eggs on the underside of
the large milkweed leaf in
spring, they hatch into baby
caterpillars. The next two
weeks are spent eating and
growing (shedding their
outer skin, a process known
as an instar).
TERS
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(waystation?), lays eggs and
dies. That new generation
heads north (and how do they
know which way is north?),
arrives at another patch of
milkweed, lays eggs and
dies. And that can go out for
as many as five times before
the progeny of those winter-
ing monarchs finally reaches
“home.”
Is it any wonder Kellen,
Werts’ elementary school-
aged son, named that mag-
nificent monarch, “Journey”?
Wesre th angfml
th at yom and
yomr loved
ones drive omt
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with ms.