A recent resolution by the Naperville Park District Board passed with flying colors.
Exactly what Naperville skies might be filled with this summer, after the group resolved to “enhance and expand available habitat for monarch butterflies and other native pollinators.”
With the monarch population declining by 90 percent in the past decade, local advocacy group the DuPage Monarch Project urged the board to enhance the butterfly’s habitat within Naperville’s parks, and to help spread awareness of their plight, something the park district will now be doing at Knoch Knolls.
“Because we are a nature center we’re all about environmental education and conservation. So we actually raised 32 monarchs last summer, and released them in the fall and they hopefully made it down to Mexico. So we wanted to continue the work that we were doing,” said Manager of the Knoch Knolls Nature Center, Angelique Harshman.
Park district staff plans to increase plantings of milkweed and other native pollinator plants near a bridge in Knoch Knolls Park, refraining from using pesticides in the area. They also hope to install signs near the plantings, and provide education on how to design a monarch way station.
Naperville News 17’s Evan Summers reports.
