Marshfield Monarchs raises and releases monarch butterflies

MARSHFIELD, Wis. (WSAW) - A Marshfield family is doing their part to keep monarch butterflies from becoming endangered.

Marshfield Monarchs has been raising and releasing butterflies for 6 years to increase the monarch population.

“We’ve released 10,000 so far,” said Jim Gwiazda, the co-founder of Marshfield Monarchs.

The insect enthusiasts said monarch butterflies are at risk of becoming an endangered species.

“Just helping them, you know, get to the point to survival cause so many of them don’t survive out into the wild,” said Gwiazda.

The founders of Marshfield Monarchs decided to raise the butterflies themselves. They said summer is one of the busiests seasons for releases.

“We’ll during the summer months, we probably release daily, if not every other day but we try to get them out as soon as they do come out and their wings are dry they’re ready to go,” said Gwiazda.

The monarch experts said they use a rescue method to collect the monarch eggs.

“Well raising them, we usually go out. We look for the eggs out into fields, ditches that might be mowed,” said Gwiazda.

From there, the family places the eggs into cups where they will hatch in about 4 days.

“Every day we go through them. Give them fresh milkweed. Get them to the point where they’re big enough,” said Gwiazda.

The insects are placed in tanks and given some time to transform.

“They turn into a chrysalis then we transfer them to the tent here, which we rack and from there when they hatch then they’re ready to be released,” said Gwiazda.

Marshfield Monarchs said it takes about a month for the eggs to turn into butterflies, but raising butterflies is no walk in the park.

“It’s a lot of work. A lot of cleaning and making sure that they’re not getting diseased or anything like that,” said Gwiazda.

But Marshfield Monarchs said the work is worth the reward.

“Releasing them is one of the favorites because getting them from that point to the point where they can go, you know, it’s rewarding,” said Gwiazda.

Marshfield Monarchs estimates that they’ll release about 2,000 butterflies this season.

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