Please Help Us Save ENDANGERED Monarch Butterflies

Our worst fears were realized with the announcement that the beloved migratory monarch butterfly (Danaus Plexippus) was declared ENDANGERED by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN 7/21/22), the leading authority on the status of biological diversity. This iconic pollinator of childhood memories now has an "extremely high risk of extinction in the wild," a loss that will have far reaching impact on us all unless we do something about it.

The news is heartbreaking, but not a complete surprise for my husband, a warrior conservationist,

New Yorker of the Week Keith De Cesare*, who, together with our daughters, has been devoted to the plight of the monarch butterfly in New York City. He's been predicting this extinction event designation for years and has been working tirelessly to address it. *https://youtu.be/sY8WNln6HN4 (Direct link to NY1 video)

The familiar orange and black butterfly was once a frequent companion on a summer afternoon stroll, inspired our childhood curiosity and filled our school books with lessons about metamorphosis and how they miraculously migrate thousands of miles to find an ancestral birthplace they've never seen. But not so much any more. And maybe never again. Sadly, their numbers have been in such decline in recent years that children today may never see one in real life. We used to see them all the time but in this period of global warming, habitat loss and use of pesticides, it's far more serious and potentially disastrous than the loss of a childhood memory. 

A modern-day canary in a coal mine, monarch butterflies are an indicator species. They signal when something in our environment is out of balance and serve as a warning for our own environmental health. As they are threatened with extinction, we must understand that we are also at risk. We are all connected in the amazing ecosystem of life on the planet. With the pollinators becoming endangered, we are facing a global extinction event that impacts all of humanity. We are at this critical window where climate change is going to start having a bigger and bigger impact on species. 

At the Inwood Butterfly Sanctuary we are doing everything we can to save the monarch butterfly, but it is much more than restoring habitat and raising butterflies. Although we do plenty of that, we are building awareness of the biodiversity crisis through our children and their families to spur action on behalf of threatened species. To create communal empathy for nature. To foster future environmental advocates. To teach stewardship and environmental conservation. The monarch butterfly has the power to help us do that.

When we began the Inwood Butterfly Sanctuary to help our own kids better understand specialized plant and pollinator relationships in a healthy ecosystem, the importance of the balance of nature, and how indicator species can signal our own future survival, we did not anticipate how critically important our project would urgently become to our entire community. Everyone becomes engaged as together we care for the garden and raise butterflies. We have become devoted advocates for the plight of the monarch butterfly by engaging those whose survival most depends on our success, those who will inherit the future, our own children. 

Throughout the summer we provide outdoor "Nature Learning" activities and field trips to foster new ways of understanding the importance of biodiversity and the interrelationship between native plants and animals that depend on them. Our focus on butterflies fosters wonder and curiosity in a multi sensory experience as we survey and monitor the environment for their tiny eggs and caterpillars to eventually release as butterflies, all with an awareness that without pollinators the ecosystem will completely fall out of balance.

You gotta love something that's this beautiful and miraculous and we absolutely love butterflies. We've loved them since childhood. The work of raising each one of these creatures is incredibly complex, difficult, expensive, exhausting and based on many hours of unseen work. We have to plant and cultivate the milkweed, search for the eggs, make sure they are protected from the predators and parasitic insects.

We focus on the reward for children to get up close and personal with the butterflies, most importantly be able to share with the community what's going to help change the face of conservation for these beautiful creatures.

If you can't see it, if you can't appreciate it, you can't truly love it. And if you can't love something you don't have a real reason to protect it.

Every day another species vanishes from our planet, many of which go unseen and unrecognized but we are working tirelessly to change this.

We bring children to experience what they will never forget. The story of metamorphosis and a migration that is miraculous and not well understood. The memories can last a lifetime but to physically handle, get hands on with and spiritually connect with these one can only experience in person.

Over the years many have asked how they could contribute to this important cause and support the wonderful work of the Inwood Butterfly Sanctuary. We have toiled day in and day out, cultivating milkweed, a plant critical to the monarchs survival to create Monarch Waystation 24,820. Every butterfly we raise and release has the potential to reproduce and save the species from extinction.

Please click through to our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/InwoodButterflySanctuary/

www.inwoodbutterflysanctuary.org

To view our ongoing projects and activities!

Please help us keep this wonderful labor of love going. Our future depends on it.

Tiny Miracles video (Please view like and share)

https://youtu.be/wzDgUlQPf8k

If you are still reading this, thank you. That means that you care if the Monarch Butterflies go extinct. It also means this wonderful project has warmed your heart or impressed you in some way. If you cannot contribute financially at this time, it's okay, we understand times are tough. But as this is not a frivolous activity. It's a very serious matter, and it is surprisingly costly and time consuming. We ask at very least that you share it, to reflect on it's importance, and perhaps inspire someone (or an organization), who can make a donation. The continuation and development of this initiative, and the future if the monarch butterflies depend on it.