In an email to the Arlington Neighborhood News Exchange, Long Branch Nature Center Naturalist Rachael Tolman wrote that the best way to ensure the butterflies’ presence in the area is to plant milkweed.
“Milkweed provides a critical link in the life cycle of monarch butterflies; they cannot survive without it,” Tolman wrote. “Monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed because it is the only food their caterpillars can eat. Unfortunately, the numbers of milkweed plants across vast areas of North America have been declining for decades due to increased land use for crops and widespread herbicide use.”
