Community comes out for Butterflies in the Pass Monarch Festival

Hundreds gathered inside War Memorial Park for the annual Butterflies in the Pass Monarch Festival.

The social butterflies were out and about this weekend, getting up close and personal with different pollinators.

The festival’s goal is to educate the community about the benefits Monarch Butterflies and other pollinators, their lifecycles, and what people can do to help them thrive. National Butterfly Association Member Craig Marks said, “They’re a good habitat indicator of whether your particular habitat is healthy or not. Butterflies, bees, are good indicators of what’s going on in the habitat of which you are located.”

Marks also shared the most common butterflies you will see right now along with Monarchs. “Here in the Gulf Coast at this time of year, you’re going to see the big yellow cloudless sulfurs, you’ll see the little yellows. There was one on a flower just a moment ago. Buckeyes are a common butterfly; Gulf fritillaries are a common butterfly.”

Guests also learned about the migration patterns of Monarchs. “Monarchs begin their journey from all across North America, across the Gulf Coast into Mexico where they will spend the winter.”

Attendees also learned about an invasive species that could be a threat to our food in Mississippi. MS Bug Blues MSU Outreach Coordinator Beverly Keasler said, “So unfortunately, the spotted lantern fly has been present in the United States for several years. It was just detected in Tennessee this week. So, the threat to Mississippi has gotten really close to home. They are a fruit feeding pest insect. They feed on the plants that grow, lots of different types of trees. Grape is a significant risk in Mississippi because of muscadines.”

If you’ve ever seen a butterfly in flight, you know they are graceful creatures in the air, but News 25’s Spencer Pullen had to clear up the rumor: do butterflies fly around inebriated? “There is some truth to that rumor. One way to attract butterflies is to put out a bait. Okay and my bait is usually bananas, mangos, brown sugar, and dark beer. And so, I have seen it and I know of other people that have witnessed it where the butterfly will spend so much time at the bait that it appears to be drunk that it actually staggers as it moves away from the bait because they’ve taken in so much of the beer.”