About this item
Every fall, spectacular orange and black clouds of monarch butterflies fill the skies as they migrate from across North America to Central Mexico. West Coast populations make a similar though much shorter trip to coastal California. The National Wildlife Federation calls the monarch migration "one of the greatest natural phenomena in the insect world." Not long ago, monarchs numbered in the billions, but in the last 20 years their population has dropped by 90%, due to habitat loss from pesticides, modern farming practices, urban development and other human activity. An estimated one million acres of habitat are lost each year.But today, an army of citizen scientists, students and gardeners is engaged in restoring this beloved pollinator's habitat - the wildflowers and milkweed and feeding corridors - so that one of nature's most beautiful creatures will still be there for generations to come.
About the Author
KYLEE BAUMLE is a citizen scientist who participates in several programs that provide data to researchers studying monarchs (through Monarch Watch with the University of Kansas, and Journey North, which reports migration sightings, roosts and other key monarch data) . Her rural Ohio garden is a Certified Monarch Waystation (#948) since 2006, a Certified Wildlife Habitat, and is registered with Pollinator Partnership as part of The Million Pollinator Garden Challenge.
A lifelong gardener and photographer with an endless curiosity about nature, Kylee is a regular columnist for both her local newspaper and Ohio Gardener magazine. She has also written for Horticulture, The American Gardener, Fine Gardening and Indiana Gardener. Her photography has appeared in Fine Gardening and in numerous books, magazines, garden industry trade publications and catalogs. In addition to The Monarch, she is co-author of Indoor Plant Décor.
Discovering the unique and beautiful monarch butterfly has helped Kylee appreciate how so many things in nature depend on so many other things, including human beings. She believes that each and every one of us who share this earth can make a difference when we work together and fulfill the potential that we all possess to do good.
Kylee wants her grandchildren to not only be able to tell the wondrous story of the monarch to their own children and grandchildren, but to be able to show them much of it firsthand.
You can follow Kylee's blog, Our Little Acre, at http://ourlittleacre.com, where she writes about her love for the natural world.
