CHICAGO -- More than a dozen images of butterflies adorn the front of Claudia Galeno-Sanchez’s home in the Pilsen neighborhood. There are monarch butterflies spreading their wings and many other colorful ones sprinkled in between. The small house stands out from the tall buildings on the block.
It is filled with milkweed plants and other flowers that have helped raise monarchs for nearly five years. Galeno-Sanchez and her husband and two children decided to create a butterfly sanctuary after learning that they could help raise and preserve the beloved species in the city.
Though Galeno-Sanchez knew monarch butterflies were in danger, she began to sob when she learned that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature added the migrating monarch to its “red list” of threatened species and categorized it as “endangered” — two steps from extinct.
