The Disappearing Caterpillars

The caterpillars and butterflies in my neighborhood are missing. My sisters, cousins, and I used to walk along the country roads and find numerous caterpillars on the plentiful milkweed plants. We would each take a caterpillar home and watch it metamorphosize into a butterfly. It was a promising tradition we looked forward to every year, until the milkweed started to disappear and finding a caterpillar became a rare success. Caterpillars and butterflies are becoming more scarce because of habitat loss due to roadside mowing and land development. Milkweed is the only plant monarch butterflies lay eggs on, and is the only plant caterpillars eat, leaving them in a difficult state to reproduce when there is no available habitat. To carry on my family’s tradition and see more butterflies and caterpillars again, we can plant our own milkweed in our backyard. It would be difficult to stop roadside mowing and land development since those are essential for building communities and businesses. However, we can individually make our own efforts to give monarchs and caterpillars their habitat back.