Federal Protection Sought for Iconic Pollinators 'In Deadly Free Fall'

I've actually raised two Monarchs from caterpillar. One was a tragic failure (I didn't realize how close to pupation the caterpillar was when I found it, and it consequently wound up trying to pupate in a space far too confined to do so, and it squashed itself). The other did make it to full adulthood and was released (though it was a bit off season, so the poor thing may have frozen just after I let it go).
I try and do what I can to keep the butterfly population up. During the summer I keep a little extra money for farmers market trips specifically to purchase any dill or fennel plants that Black Swallowtails have decided to make their homes (since I know that if the vendors catch them, their lives are over.) and we have a LOT of butterfly bushes for nectar
My main problem is that most of the butterflies around here I have seen as larvae tend to eat things that require major space allocation. Putting in some milkweeds is one thing, but I don't really have the space for a grove of hackberries (morning cloaks) or to re-plant all of the sassafrases and such(spicebush swallowtail) that got cut down when they built the house across the street (especially since spicebush tends to need really full shade, like forest level, to do well)

bobm said:

Try this on for size ... In N. Cal. where the rice patty is the dominant feature of the farm landscape and towns are small and far between, after the butterfly pupate, then hatch, traveling on any highway, country road or gravel byway and your windshield will be covered with dead yellow and white butterflies that one has to stop periodically to clean the windshield. Too , one's radiator gets so clogged with butterflies that your car overheats. Still, the skys are full of these butterflies as far as one can see.

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Never seen this.

Mary

Milkweed is poisonous to livestock, so be careful where you plant it.

One other caveat, monarchs are not the only caterpillars that eat milkweed. In some places, (like here) there is also something called a milkweed moth. Looks a little like a wooly bear with a bright orange Mohawk. They'll out eat any Monarch, so you'll want to remove them to protect your developing larvae. But, and this is important, wear gloves to do this, as their hairs are EXTREMELY urticative (irritating).

I actually found this out the hard way back in college. It never occurred to me that this would be a problem (none of the caterpillar species that live around me at home are ones that I am reactive to, so the concept of ones that are was alien to me.) and I changed the leaves in a container of these caterpillars I was raising ON MY BED. Come that night I woke up with a horrible itching, to discover my belly and legs COVERED with welts from caterpillar hairs than had migrated onto my sheet and from there, into my pajamas. That night was hell. Luckily after a change of sheets and pajamas the welts went down by the morning and the itching ceased.

I make sure I have flowers in the yard for their fall journey.