Anglonautes > English vocabulary / words > Earth > Nature / wildlife > Insects > Lepidopterans

MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Barb Agnew ruffled the thin netting hanging in her flower shop, causing a monarch butterfly to descend far enough for her to gently clasp it. She then released it outside where it flitted about a hanging plant before disappearing in the gray sky, leaving her beaming like a proud mother.

About two weeks earlier, the butterfly was either a pinhead-sized egg or a caterpillar that Agnew rescued from the nearby Milwaukee County Grounds.

Bulldozers are clearing the grounds to create a flood basin for excess rain water. The machinery removes assorted vegetation, including the milkweed plants, on which monarchs lay eggs and upon which their caterpillars feed.

As work progresses, Agnew races to collect as many of the movement-challenged insects as she can. She brings them to Wildflower Floral, the flower shop she co-owns in the Milwaukee suburb of Wauwatosa.

''I'd be doing this anyway just because these creatures are so beautiful,'' said Agnew, 44. ''But with the destruction, there's a greater sense of urgency. I couldn't bear to see them be killed.''

Agnew estimates that she'll rescue about 1,000 monarchs this year. She has collected butterflies for about 20 years.

Agnew walks the county grounds almost every night. She spots the tiny monarch eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves, and brings them to an enclosure in the back of her store.

The eggs hatch into caterpillars, which gorge on milkweed leaves for about two weeks before forming a chrysalis, the cocoon-like structure in which their metamorphosis occurs.

Agnew generally transfers the chrysalises to the front of the store, using a glue gun to affix them to a gnarled tree. Nearly 100 of them hang like jade ornaments, each with a raised strip of tiny golden beads near the top.

''Over the years I've watched butterflies emerge countless times, and each time I never cease to be amazed,'' she said.

Judi Fancher, a floral designer at Wildflower, said Agnew's enthusiasm is infectious.

''Kids will come in and she'll have them hold (freshly emerged butterflies) to give them a moment of making it real,'' she said. ''They leave with such an appreciation for them.''

Agnew said she hopes that exposing more people to the wonder of nature will generate more opposition to the removal of habitats.

Jeffrey Glassberg, the president of the North American Butterfly Association based in Morristown, N.J., said Agnew's attempts to save butterflies are well-intentioned but ultimately futile.

''She may be saving these, but that won't have any effect on population next year,'' he said. ''It'd be better to get people to plant milkweed and give monarchs a place to feed.''

Agnew said she won't stop. She said she hopes to teach others about nature's beauty.

''We need wondrous things in life to be happy. It can't always be about work and money,'' she said. ''We need mystery, we need wonder. There's got to be more.''

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On the Net:

North American Butterfly Association: http://www.naba.org

Milwaukee Woman Rescues Butterflies,
NYT,
29.8.2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/
aponline/us/AP-Butterfly-Lady.html - broken link

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