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www.driftlessjournal.com | 563-382-4221 | Tuesday, September 17, 2024 | Vol. 6 Issue 38
Tagging sky tigers:
County conservation and Decorah Parks team up to tag migrating monarchs
Photo courtesy Winneshiek County Conservation naturalist Larry Reis. Visit www. winneshiekwild.com for more information on Winneshiek County Conservation.
G N I N E P O D N A GR
BY ZACH JENSEN STAFF WRITER Decorah Park and Recreation teamed up with Winneshiek County Conservation Sept. 4 to put on an educational and tagging program about monarchs — also known as tigers of the sky and the black-veined brown butterfly — at the Decorah Community Prairie. Decorah Park and Recreation volunteer Miriam Patton and WCC Edu-
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cation and Outreach Coordinator Hanna Meyer taught participants how to identify male and female monarchs and talked about their migration patterns. Patton and Meyer also helped attendees tag monarchs by applying stickers less than half the diameter of a penny to one of the butterflies’ wings. Patton, who has been fascinated by monarchs much of her life, said there are two groups of monarchs in North America
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2024-2025
PERFORMANCES
‘THE LORD OF THE RINGS’
‘MOVIE POPS’
‘CAPRICCIO ESPAGNOL’
Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024
Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025
Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025
FREE WILL DONATION
TICKETS $15
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3:00PM at Decorah High School Auditorium
3:00PM at Decorah High School Auditorium
3:00PM at Decorah High School Auditorium
Sponsored by Marion E. Jerome Foundation & Depot Outlet. Support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Iowa Arts Council, which exists within the Iowa Economic Development Authority.
Driftless Area Art Festival Celebrating the Visual, Performing & Culinary Arts of the Driftless
Sept 21 & 22, 2024 Soldiers Grove WI Saturday 10 am - 5 pm, Sunday 10 am - 4 pm
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which migrate south each fall — the eastern group includes Iowa, while the western group is based west of the Rocky Mountains and the insects there migrate to southern California. “It started in 1937,” said Patton. “A professor in Canada noticed they’d disappear, so he wanted to know where they went. It wasn’t until 1975 that the butterflies were found in El Rosario, Mexico.” Each year, according to monarchwatch.org, millions of monarchs east of the Rocky Mountains migrate south to a sanctuary in El Rosario, Mexico. Meyer said the monarch doesn’t have any predators in the United States primarily because of a key component in their diet. “They eat milkweed, which contains toxins, so they’re poisonous,” she said. “But, in Mexico, there are two species of birds and one species of mouse that eat them. So, they’re preyed on in Mexico.” The monarch population has suffered in recent years, Meyer said, but the cause for the low numbers isn’t clear, and this isn’t the first time the population has struggled. “They go out and find eggs out in the wild and bring them indoors to raise them,” Patton said. “We’re finding that the percentage of indoor-raised Monarchs getting to Mexico is way less than the wild-raised Monarchs.” Tracking the monarch population is important, because 75 percent of the world’s food depends on pollinators like birds, bees and butterflies. “All pollinators are important,” Patton said. “A huge percentage of our food needs natural pollinators. Without monarchs, we wouldn’t have good crops or good gardens or beautiful flowers, and that’s why they’re important.” Full article can be found in the September 12 Decorah Leader.
Season Finale
featuring music by Jessie Montgomery, Johannes Brahms and Howard Hanson
Sunday, April 27, 2025 3:00PM at Decorah High School Auditorium FREE WILL DONATION