Monarch butterflies will soon arrive in Mexico for the winter, but their annual journey south from the U.S. and Canada has gotten increasingly more difficult as their habitat shrinks by two million acres per year.
In an effort to stem this loss, the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation has awarded a coalition of Native American tribes based in Oklahoma nearly $250,000 to help restore monarch butterfly habitat on tribal lands in the eastern part of the state.
The tribes are working with Monarch Watch, a cooperative network at the University of Kansas dedicated to monarch habitat restoration, and the Euchee Butterfly Farm in Bixby, Oklahoma, to help restore the habitat whose loss has caused a drastic drop in the population numbers of the beautiful butterfly.
The Muscogee Creek Nation, the Chickasaw Nation, and the Miami Nation have already pledged their support for the project and other tribes are showing interest.
[Photo credit: Derek Ramsey, Wikipedia]