LEE COUNTY, IOWA -- The Monarch butterfly is one the most recognized insects in the U.S. The bold orange and black butterfly is the long-distance champion of butterfly migration, taking on the longest migration of any insect.
Saturday morning, KHQA caught up with the Lee County Conservation Board at a Monarch Tagging event at Wilson Lake near Donnellson, Iowa.
The public was invited catch a Monarch in the area and then tag it with a sticker on the wing. This will help track the butterflies' population and migration route to Mexico City every year. That's about a two thousand mile trip.
"Those butterflies will eventually come back to our area and lay their eggs for the next year. It's really fun when they find a Monarch that they can track and find on the Website. It doesn't happen very often, but it doesn't mean your Monarch didn't make it, it just means they didn't pick up the one with your tag on it," said Karen Johlas-Scalkowski with the Lee County Conservation Board.
During our visit up there, we tagged two Monarchs and will be looking to see if they make the journey to Mexico. You can track the progress of all the tagged butterflies on MonarchWatch.org.
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