Building MTRI!
MTRI is launching a capital fundraising campaign to reach the ambitious goal of $75,000 to improve the MTRI facilities and programs. Keep an eye on the hatchling turtle to see how close we are to reaching our goal!
![[Turtle Thermometer]](/images/turtle_animation.gif)
Sign-up for free membership:
Help support MTRI!
You can donate via Paypal, just enter an amount and click the donate button - thank you.
Welcome to the "Butterfly Club" homepage!
Here you'll find information about monarchs, milkweed, and the "Butterfly Club" - soon, we'll have a page for members' gardens, local nursaries where members can get special deals, and much more. Check back often for updates!
Note: To sign up for the butterfly club, call or email MTRI - we need to send you a hard-copy of the sign-up kit. Next year we may have online sign-up, but for now it's only in person! Thanks for your patience : )
Monarch Butterflies
The Monarch Butterfly (Danaus plexippus) is sometimes known as "the storm king" because it often most active during a storm. Its latin names means "sleepy transformation" in English, which symbolizes its ability to hibernate in Mexico, and metamorphose throughout North America. It is called the "Monarch" because of the golden ridge around its chrysalis. Below you'll find a page from the "Species at Risk in Nova Scotia: Identification and Information Guide", which describes the Monarch to a T. Click a page to see a high resolution version.
.jpg)
.jpg)
For full resolution pdf versions of these images, check out www.speciesatrisk.ca/SARGuide
Milkweed
There are two kinds of Milkweed living in Nova Scotia: 1) Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), and 2) Swamp Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata). The first, Common Milkweed, is a "noxious weed" in Nova Scotia. It can be harmful to livestock, although cows usually avoid it and watchful farmers can keep it from proliferating in a field. The second, Swamp Milkweed, usually lives only along wet and sunny areas. They have bright green lance-shaped leaves and purple flowers in the summer, and pointed seed pods with fluffy white parachutes in the fall. Swamp milkweed plants can grow to be six feet tall!
Both types of Milkweed are the preferred food plant of Monarch Caterpillars. Adults will lay their eggs on milkweed leaves, and the larvae (which hatch from the egg a few days after being laid) will feed on the leaves. There is a certain poison (a "glycoside") that is present in the leaves, which the caterpillar can tolerate. Because the poison builds up in their bodies, any birds that eat them will get sick! This way, birds learn to avoid eating monarch caterpillars and adults!
Unfortunately, since farmers throughout North America have been applying herbicides to eliminate Milkweed from their fields, Monarchs are running out of their favourite food plant, which protects them from predation.
"Butterfly Club"
Stewardship biologists at MTRI and Parks Canada created the "Butterfly Club" to encourange local people to grow gardens with swamp milkweed, a non-noxious weed, that is beneficial to Monarch Butterflies. Every little bit counts. When you join, members have to sign an agreement that gardens will only be grown further than 20m from major roads (to avoid road-kill), and that pesticides and herbicides will not be used (to avoid harm to insects).
Package Contents
If you have never joined the "Butterfly Club" before, your first package will include: 1) a volunteer profile card (which you need to return to us upon purchase, so we can remember who is growing butterfly gardens where), 2) a butterfly club description, including suggested plants for your garden, 3) a card describing which butterflies you might see and how to plant your garden, 4) a membership card & number, 5) a beautiful butterfly postcard, and 6) either two swamp-milkweed plants, a packet of seeds, monarch stamps, or a sign for your garden.
1)
2)
3)
If you are already a member of the "Butterfly Club", you can always purchase more swamp milkweed plants, some new monarch stamps and envelopes from Canada Post, and hopefully in 2010 we will be able to provide signs for members to place in their gardens. Additionally, we hope to garner discounts at local nursaries where you can buy local, native, butterfly plants.
The charge to join the club is only $10, which covers the cost of the materials used to produce the club kits, and which supports MTRI's "Butterfly Club" program, in addition to local organic farmers.
Contact MTRI for more information, and stay tuned for more updates!
Check out these links for videos of monarch's going into and coming out of it's chyrsalis!
Many thanks to Arthur Tanner for sharing his videos with us
Monarch Butterfly forming a chrysalis
Monarch Butterfly emerging from a chrysalis
Check out other links about the Monarch!
Read the following articles to learn more about the monarch situation in North America.
http://features.csmonitor.com/environment/2009/10/21/mexico-cuts-down-trees-to-save-monarch-butterflies/ --> an article about the loss of overwintering habitat in Mexico
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Storms+threaten+butterflies+winter+rest+Mexico/2697972/story.html
New to 2010: The Maritimes Butterfly Atlas http://www.accdc.com/butterflyatlas.html