Monarch Butterflies Pass Through Oklahoma On 3,000 Mile Journey To Mexico

We all have roads that we need to travel on to get from point A to point B but the road for a Monarch butterfly looks a little different than ours.

“Monarchs, just like us, they need rest stops, they need a convenient place to sleep at night, they need fuel, they need energy, and so in that highway, Oklahoma is dead center in the middle of it,” said Patrick Hayes, a Naturalist for Tulsa County Parks.

You may have seen some orange and black fluttering around and that’s because monarch butterflies are passing through Green Country on their road trip to Mexico. Hayes spends his time educating others about the animal and wants Tulsans to know just how impactful and necessary monarchs are.

“Start removing the convenience, start removing the fuel stations, and start removing this animal, and everything else that depends on it, is going to go away as well,” he said.

Monarchs play a key role in the ecosystem. They are a food source for other animals, and they pollinate our plants. Hayes says it’s best to not disrupt the creatures as they embark on their journey.

“If you really take a step back and look at what happens in nature, everything participates in a cycle, and the more we can respect that cycle, the better off that we’re going to be,” he said.

The monarch's rest stop here won’t last long, as they leave for the next one in a few short weeks.

“Consider yourself lucky if you see a monarch because that is evidence of a special migration and that things are going well," he said.

If you want to help monarchs on their migration journey you can do that by planting a diverse garden with milkweed and using organic pesticides.