Hungry, Hungry (Monarch) Caterpillars: Protecting the Pollinators

Butterfly conservationist Lauri Juday wants more wildflowers, fewer lawns

By Kierstin Gunsberg | April 6, 2024

Spring has sprung, and northern Michiganders are dusting off bikes, kites, and lawnmowers…but Lauri Juday wants everyone to take a moment to rethink the need for that last item.

As a butterfly conservationist, she hopes more homeowners and businesses will consider letting their lawns—or at least parts of them—grow wild this spring to provide healthy habitats for the monarch butterfly’s roundtrip migration from northern Mexico to North America and back again.

Over thousands of miles, the butterflies seek out native wildflowers (which often look like weeds to the untrained human eye) to energize their journey, which starts right about now with the “first generation” of butterflies waking up in the mountain forests of Mexico after a long winter hibernation. Once they’ve perked up, they’ll migrate northward, reproducing in cycles along the way, with each subsequent generation continuing the journey northward until they’ve reached the northern half of North America, where they’ll breed before turning back around for their return trip south for the winter.

To her chagrin, Juday’s Walloon Lake neighborhood requires a manicured lawn, “It’s aesthetically pleasing to just those people that find goodwill in it,” she says. But, “I am not one of those.”

To counter the trimmed grass, she’s carved out a corner of her yard into a waystation (a butterfly garden that serves as a pit stop for hungry monarchs looking for a place to snack, rest, and breed) with many of her neighbors following suit and looking to Juday for guidance on what to plant (milkweed!) and what to avoid (pesticides!).

Juday’s efforts aren’t limited to her street though. She also teaches conservation workshops, raises and tags monarch butterflies for release, and advocates to local leaders the need for creating healthier spaces for all pollinators, which are essential to the global food supply.

“We need to provide a yard that’s sustainable for our pollinators—not just our butterflies but our bees, our hummingbirds, our orioles,” says Juday. “If they die, we die.”

A Month of Metamorphosis

For Juday, conservation is a family affair, starting with her mom. Together, they raised butterflies throughout Juday’s childhood.

“We just lived on a farm and it was part of something we did every summer—put them in the jar and watch them hatch and grow and be responsible for another life,” recalls Juday.

When she had kids of her own, she carried on the tradition, and by the time she became a grandma, showing her grandchildren the ins and outs of raising butterflies was a given.

“Any one of my grandkids could give you my whole speech and tell you everything. They could take you right from the egg all the way to the end cycle,” says Juday. “I always tell them it takes one person to make a difference—you be that one person.”

Now, with little helpers by her side, she’s getting ready for another season of raising and releasing monarch butterflies from her home.

At the end of May, Juday, who’s affiliated with monarch tracking organizations Journey North and Monarch Watch, will be on the lookout for the first flashes of fiery orange butterflies landing in northern Michigan. Once she spots them, she’ll harvest their pinhead-sized eggs, which they lay exclusively on milkweed, from a friend’s field in Petoskey.

“It’s about a 40-acre patch, and I bring it home and wash it because I don’t want to bring predators inside my enclosures,” says Juday of the delicate process of spotting, removing, and transferring the monarch eggs from the field to her homemade incubation system of lidded crates lined with leaves.

The leaves, she explains, need to be constantly checked. If they get too dry, the eggs will die before they can hatch. Once hatched, the pale-green larva grow into the familiar striped caterpillars of children’s picture books. Soon thereafter, Juday graduates them to chrysalis enclosures where they’ll finally emerge as butterflies roughly two weeks after spinning their chrysalis. The whole process is a whirlwind month, give or take, and ends with Juday tagging her butterflies before releasing them to take their place in the cross-country migration.

Last year, she sent 3,000 butterflies off into the world.

A Future for the Pollinators

Why do all that work? First, raising caterpillars in controlled environments, then releasing them as healthy adult butterflies, supports butterfly populations, as only five percent of a monarch’s eggs make it to adulthood. Second, Juday has also found that the experience connects people to the plight of pollinators.

As part of her educational offerings, she not only teaches others how to transform a portion of their HOA-worthy lawns into waystations, but also mentors those who are curious about raising their own butterflies for release. She remembers how one high school principal barely finished touring Juday’s in-home butterfly setup before asking her to teach him how to get raise and release. “He went home and just tore up his whole yard,” says Juday. “He’s teaching all of his kids and he’s diversified. He’s raising swallowtails as well as monarchs and teaching everybody in the neighborhood who will listen to him.”

Like the monarch’s migration, Juday has found this kind of hands-on learning to be a perpetual cycle. “I have other people that do this. They’ll come through on a tour and they’ll be like, ‘I want in,’ and they’ll start raising them. Then they’ll teach somebody else.”

Juday’s also hoping to impart the importance of monarch conservation to leaders across the region. Early last summer, she worked with officials to certify Melrose Township as a “Monarch City USA.” The title is earned when a municipality meets certain Monarch-friendly criteria, like committing to limiting pesticide use and transforming vacant land into nectar-rich pit stops by allowing the growth of native flowers and plants, especially milkweed, which is crucial to monarch populations.

“That’s the only thing they lay their eggs on,” explains Juday in reference to the importance of milkweed. “It’s the only thing that caterpillars eat.”

Next, she’s hoping to persuade Petoskey and Harbor Springs officials to consider becoming official Monarch Cities too, since they’re both on the monarch butterfly’s national migration trail.

In the meantime, she has a couple tips for those who are ready to start their own pollinator gardens. First, focus on native plants and not just wildflowers, since not all of them are native to northern Michigan. Goldenrod, butterfly weed, and of course, milkweed are all native to the area and a welcome sight to the monarch butterfly.

Even better, “Plant stuff that you’re going to get the most bang for your buck. If you plant perennials, you don’t have to do anything. They’ll come back every year,” she says.

Last, check out MonarchWatch.org for garden certifications and pro tips on creating, or maybe just letting be, a yard that nurtures the monarch. “I want to drive by your yard and see dandelions everywhere,” she says. “I want to see milkweed growing in your yard, knowing what you’re doing is sustaining my butterflies.”