Not long ago, the dazzling migrations of exquisite monarch butterflies were a welcome and dependable sign of the changing seasons in Chicago.
These days, though, it’s harder to get a glimpse of the popular insect as their numbers plunge. As a state and as a nation, we can help the butterflies by expanding connected habitat pathways, reducing the use of pesticides where monarchs migrate and planting more milkweed, the only food for monarch caterpillars. Adults feed on the nectar of flowers.
