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Monarch Watch 2000 in Central Park
A Science Education Program about Butterflies
New York, NY. August 1, 2000—“We’d like
it if children in New York City didn’t have to get on the bus or train to see
butterflies in the countryside. We’d like them to be able to have that
experience in the city’s parks.” --Paul Opler, Ph.D., entomologist,
lepidopterist and author of the Peterson Field Guides to North American
Butterflies, East and West.
“I think the germ of the idea came
last fall when I was on my roof and there were Monarchs everywhere. I looked out
over the city and there were thousands of monarch butterflies coming from the
north flying right down Park Avenue, using it as their flyway south.”
–Richard Stadin, President, Mastervision.
Monarch Watch
2000 in Central Park is a series of programs intended to enhance the Monarch butterfly
population in Central Park and to introduce city schoolchildren to the
butterfly’s natural history. Of particular interest is the Monarch’s
extraordinary migration south at the end of each summer, when many of the
butterflies fly thousands of miles to an isolated moutainside in central Mexico.
Children will participate in a tagging program run by Monarch Watch, an
educational outreach program at the University of Kansas, and conducted by New
York City Urban Park Rangers. Monarch Watch promotes Monarch butterfly
conservation by involving thousands of students and adults in a cooperative
study of the butterfly’s spectacular migration. Entomologists are using the
data from returned tags to learn more about these incredible butterflies.
This past spring Mastervision provided
Central Park Conservancy gardeners with hundreds of milkweed plants for planting
in the Wildflower Meadow, which is in the center of the park near 102nd
Street. Americorps workers under the direction of the David Chadwick planted
beds of Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)
and Orange Milkweed or Butterfly
Milkweed (A. tuberosa).
“These are the caterpillar food plants
of the Monarch,” said Paul Opler, “and essential for the butterfly as a host
when they lay their eggs.”
The next step was establishing a captive
breeding program. While a female Monarch may lay about 100 eggs in a single
brood, only five of those are likely to survive in the wild, where they are
preyed upon by parasites, spiders and birds and are vulnerable to the weather
and all kinds of pesticides and herbicides. By hatching the eggs in captivity
and supplying the larvae with milkweed, more than 95 are expected to survive.
“The only way to dramatically increase
the population of butterflies in the park is to breed and release them,” says
Paul Opler. A permanent increase in milkweeds could lead to a permanent increase
in Monarchs.
While some of the caterpillars have been
released in the wild, most have been put into tanks in the Dana Discovery
Center, on Harlem Meer, and the Belvedere Castle. In these tanks caterpillars
are suspending themselves, turning into pupa and then emerging as
butterflies--all in plain sight of visitors to these popular locations.
Schoolchildren who visit to the Dana
Discovery Center and Belvedere Castle have been encouraged to look for and
report emerged butterflies in the tanks. After August 15th the
children have helped tag newly
emerged butterflies according to Monarch Watch instructions, and have released
their tagged butterflies into the wild, where they will set off on their trip to
Mexico.
Tags that are returned will win a a
videotape, Audubon Society’s Butterflies
for Beginners, for the child that placed the tag.
Says Richard Stadin: “It takes a great
leap to imagine that this frail little butterfly you’re holding in your hand
is capable of flying all the way to Mexico. The tagging helps make it all seem a
little more real, which has to help the education process.”
On a number of selected days in
late-August and through early-October, Urban Park Rangers will conduct tours for
children through the wildflower meadow and other sites in the north end of the
park, and help them net and tag butterflies caught in the wild.
Monarch Watch’s Dr. Orley “Chip”
Taylor, Department of Entomology, Kansas University, says, “We’ve been
tagging these butterflies since 1991. This has provided essential data for
tracking the flyways of the butterfly’s migration. We look forward to the
Central Park project contributing to our understanding of the Monarch’s
travels.”
For Mastervision, Monarch Watch 2000 in Central Park is part of an ongoing involvement
with butterflies that began with the production of two videos: Audubon
Society’s Butterflies for Beginners and Audubon
Society’s Butterfly Gardening. The company’s latest program, entitled Have
You Seen the Lotis Blue? is in production. This hour-long pilot includes
never-before-seen video footage of 20 of the 21 butterflies listed as endangered
in the United States, shot by Jim Ebner, a retired science teacher, and an
amateur lepidopterist and videographer who is the only person to have seen and
videotaped all these rare butterflies.
Monarch Watch 2000 in Central Park is a
partnership of City of New York Parks and Recreation, Henry J. Stern,
Commissioner, Urban Park Rangers, Alexander Brash, Chief and Mastervision, 969
Park Ave., NY NY, 10028, Richard Stadin, President.
Tags supplied by Monarch Watch (www.monarchwatch.org),
a project of the University of Kansas’s Department of Entomology and the
University of Minnesota’s Department of Ecology.
For More Information Contact: Mastervision: Richard Stadin 212-879-0448, and see the website: www.mastervision.com/mw2000
