By JAMES BELL
Hays Post
A small and colorful piece of nature, the butterfly, was the subject of a Girl Scout camp last Saturday at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, 3000 Sternberg Dr.
During the event area youths learned about butterflies, their life cycle, diet, classification and dangers to the species through lessons and hands-on activities.
“Last year, we did this event for the first time just for Hays troops,” said Jessica Albers, who presented during the event. “We had such a fun time, we wanted to open it up to girls from the whole northwest side of the state.”
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“We have over 50 girls attending the event today, all the way from kindergarten through the 11th grade,” she continued. “So, we're really excited to be able to offer this.”
While fun, she said the day also helped the scouts achieve honors.
“In addition to it being a fun event, it's also a journey in a day, which means that we're following the steps that are required by the Girl Scouts in order to earn the Citizen Scientist Badge,” Albers said. “And then they'll also be doing some hands-on projects that help our community sustain butterflies in the future.”
Just as butterflies are a small but essential part of the natural world, among the day’s activities, participants contributed to a much larger effort attempting to capture and tag perhaps the most well-known American butterfly, the monarch, as they safely captured and identified butterflies on the Howard Reynolds Nature Trail, adjacent to the museum’s main building.
The Monarch Watch Tagging Program started in 1992 as a large-scale effort to track the world’s only migratory insect from locations across North America to their winter home in Mexico.
Each year over 250,000 monarchs are tagged, according to Monarch Watch. Each tag, harmless to the butterfly, is entered into a database that helps with research that answers questions about the origins of the butterflies that reach Mexico, their pace, mortality rates and geographic distribution.
While the program has been ongoing for 30 years, much of their work has become better known in recent years as U.S. and Canadian Wildlife services have noted the risks to the species as a result of environmental factors, including habit loss and the destruction of the monarch caterpillar's only food source, Milkweed.
In July, the monarch entered the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species as Endangered.
Perhaps as a testament to the day's purpose, few Monarch butterflies were seen through the morning, and only one was captured, tagged and released.
But as participants left for the day, one last activity was designed to help in the effort to help monarch conservation efforts.
“We're going to make seed bombs with wildflower seeds that butterflies are attracted to,” Albers said. “Hopefully, the areas where the seed bombs are deposited, wildflowers will bloom up and next year, and we'll have more habitat for the butterflies that migrate next year.”
Along with the tangible efforts to learn about butterflies, the event also offered an opportunity to learn about more than just insects.
During the day, Dodge City Girl Scout leader Maegan Seifried shared with participants how small impacts can have large implications, colloquially known as the Butterfly Effect.
“The flap of a butterfly's wing can determine whether or not a tornado hits the town,” Seifried said. “In your life, that might make a big impact. You don't know how big of an impact, right? Because a butterfly doesn't know that it just diverted this tornado from Kansas, right? It's not even thinking about that. It's just thinking about where am I going to sleep and what am I going to do. Where's the water? So let's think about, as you leave today. I want you to remember that even your smallest action can make consequences, to take care of yourself, to take care of your friends, to take care of the planet. Take care of the people that don't like you. To take care of the butterflies.”
