Mad About Monarchs

22 Sep
9:00 AM

Kansas Wetlands Education Center, 592 NE K-156 Highway, Great Bend, KS

Plan to attend the KWEC’s second “Mad About Monarchs” event on Sept. 22, where participants have the opportunity to capture and tag the butterflies.

At the free event held from 9 a.m. to noon, participants will receive information about the tagging process before heading out with a tagging leader to search for Monarch butterflies. Tags and nets will be provided, along with instruction on how to tag and record data about captured monarchs.

Swamp milkweed plants and butterfly milkweed seeds will be available free to those who would like to attract monarch butterflies to their yards and gardens. Information on butterfly-friendly plants and other attractants will be available and visitors may also walk through the wildflower/butterfly garden to view examples of butterfly-friendly plants.

Throughout the morning, kids can make a butterfly feeder and a “migrating” monarch butterfly in the craft area and participate in butterfly activities. Door prizes, presented at 11:30 a.m.,  include butterfly nets, field guides and t-shirts. Light refreshments will be served.

The citizen science tagging project is an ongoing 21-year research project through the University of Kansas Monarch Watch. The response has been overwhelming, with hundreds of thousands of monarch butterflies tagged over those years, adding to the knowledge base about the monarch. In past years, monarch butterflies have been recovered at overwintering sites in Central Mexico, about 1,125 miles south of Cheyenne Bottoms.

Mad About Monarchs is part of the Bikes, Bombers, and Butterflies Weekend in Great Bend; see greatbendks.net for more information or contact KWEC at 1-877-243-9268 .