Each year Texoma plays an important role in the migration of the Monarch butterflies as they make their remarkable journey from Canada to Mexico in late summer and back to Canada in the spring. Along this 2,000 mile trip, Monarchs need both nectar rich plants for food and hosting plants that provide a nursery for monarch eggs.
Why is this so important? These insects pollinate three-quarters of all plant life. This process is critical to one of every three bites of our food. In 2014, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto hosted a summit with Canada and the U.S. asking for help in restoring the monarch population that winters in Mexico. Each country developed its own action plan.
In May, President Barack Obama announced a national strategy to make Interstate 35 a 1,500-mile “pollinator collider” to bring back honeybees, monarchs and other pollinators. The U.S. Department of Transportation and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will help rehabilitate butterfly habitats along the federal highway that extends from the Texas-Mexico border to Duluth, Minnesota.
“Texas is a pivotal U.S. state for monarch butterfly conservation,” says Michael Warriner, TPWD’s nongame animal program leader. “As they move northward, they need resources in the form of host plants for caterpillars and nectar from flowers. During fall migration southward, they need nectar from flowers to fuel their trip and fatten themselves for winter in the mountains of Mexico.”
As part of this initiative, Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge has installed a new Butterfly Garden which just opened in 2015. The new Butterfly Garden is a ¼ acre plot located across the parking lot from the Visitor Center. Built with a combination of paid and volunteer labor, all paths and a footbridge with handrails are handicapped accessible and are ADA compliant.
Roger Sanderson, Texas Discovery Garden, designed the new Butterfly Garden incorporating Texas native plants that are known to be attractive as either nectar or host plants for butterflies and should attract other pollinators as well. In addition to walking paths, the garden has shade structures, a water feature and a teaching circle.
Hagerman is also participating in the Monarch Joint Venture, a national program of the Fish and Wildlife Service and National Wildlife Foundation. The primary goal is to restore butterfly populations on a national scope. Alex Ocanas, a recent graduate of Austin College in Sherman, will serve as the Hagerman local Monarch Intern at Hagerman NWR for about six months. Her goal is to support 100 pollinator gardens in Grayson County. Recently Alex and Courtney Anderson, student Conservation Association Intern, have been traveling thru the unflooded areas of Hagerman collecting Milkweed seeds. Their goal is to help create a seed bank that can be used to increase milkweed for “way stations” as a source of pollen, nectar and egg-laying space for not only monarch, but all pollinators.
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department is encouraging citizens to help monitor milkweed plants throughout the state. The goal is to collect as much data as possible on milkweed plants including where they are growing, how much is out there, and if monarchs are using them. You can join the “Texas Milkweeds and Monarchs” project at iNaturalist.org and download an app to your mobile device. When you see milkweed, simply take and submit a photo of the milkweed and provide the information requested by the site. For more information or to join this effort, visit http://www.inaturalist.org/projects/texas-milkweeds-and-monarchs.
