Sorry guys, but I'm going to have to rant a little bit. Today on Facebook, Monarch Watch posted about a school in California raising Monarchs. This was all well and good. Then, another teacher from Pasadena posted a picture from her school of kids tagging Monarchs they had raised at the school. Here's the picture:
Now, hopefully I don't need to explain why I was very disturbed by this, but there's some newbies and lurkers out there so here I go anyway. I can't find on Monarch Watch's website where they show you how to hold a butterfly while you tag it, but I'm going to say this is not the way to do it. After I'd been raising butterflies for a year or two, I went to the Brooker Creek Preserve's Educational Center to participate in a Monarch tagging (which is funny since ours don't migrate). They only had three Monarchs and we had two kids in the group so we let them tag the first two. My mother volunteered me for the third (she has a habit of doing things like that) but none of the other adults looked like they were chomping at the bit so I said okay. The instructor showed us how to hold the butterfly by using our index finger and middle finger to make a "scissor" shape. If you hold your fingers in a position parallel to the body you can hold all four of its wings steady so they don't damage themselves trying to escape. The butterfly in this picture is being held with two hands! Also, you can see the body is blurry which suggests it was moving, probably trying to escape. Also, does anyone think the wings still look a little wet in this picture? I just don't think they normally bend that much when they're dry. But then again, I don't go around touching the butterflies or letting others do it!
Okay, rant over. But seriously, let me know if I'm overreacting or if you think this isn't a good way to hold a Monarch.
