{"id":28701,"date":"2019-09-23T09:53:52","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T13:53:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/?p=28701"},"modified":"2019-09-23T09:53:52","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T13:53:52","slug":"monarchs-and-milkweed-at-merkle-wildlife-sanctuary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2019\/09\/23\/monarchs-and-milkweed-at-merkle-wildlife-sanctuary\/","title":{"rendered":"Monarchs and Milkweed at Merkle Wildlife Sanctuary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Monarch Butterfly Festival in Prince George\u2019s County<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright \" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/4627\/25710063597_d3398c4954.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of Monarch Butterfly\" width=\"355\" height=\"237\" \/>The <a href=\"https:\/\/dnr.maryland.gov\/Pages\/default.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Maryland Department of Natural Resources<\/a> invites everyone to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/dnr.maryland.gov\/publiclands\/Pages\/southern\/merkle.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Merkle Wildlife Sanctuary<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to celebrate the fall migration of the monarch butterfly on Sept. 28 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Adults and kids of all ages are encouraged to take part in a variety of activities, including tagging and releasing monarchs, a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/dnr.maryland.gov\/publiclands\/Pages\/snt.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Scales &amp; Tales<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> display, hayrides, guided hikes, face painting, and crafts.\u00a0<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the Northeast, monarchs in southeastern Canada begin to migrate south in early fall (September and October). Many of these individuals will fly all the way to central Mexico where they overwinter in a single mountain forest in central Mexico. During this time, the monarchs will gather in oyamel fir trees.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In February and March, the overwintering monarchs will begin their journey north and east, laying eggs on milkweed as they go. The eggs that hatch into larvae are the next generation. The young caterpillars feed on milkweed, which causes them to become distasteful to predators.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After pupating and emerging as new adults, these butterflies will continue the push north. Several more generations will follow, all continuing the journey north, until the last generation reaches Canada and continues the cycle all over again.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Merkle Wildlife Sanctuary is a 1,900-acre natural resource management area in Prince George\u2019s County.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Monarch Butterfly Festival in Prince George\u2019s County The Maryland Department of Natural Resources invites everyone to Merkle Wildlife Sanctuary to celebrate the fall migration of the monarch butterfly on Sept. 28 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Adults and kids of all ages are encouraged to take part in a variety of activities, including tagging<a href=\"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/2019\/09\/23\/monarchs-and-milkweed-at-merkle-wildlife-sanctuary\/\">&nbsp;&nbsp;Read the Rest&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[957,12,13],"tags":[4721,4717,3903,3110,3506],"class_list":["post-28701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appnews","category-parks","category-wildlife","tag-butterflies","tag-merkle-natural-resources-management-area","tag-merkle-wildlife-sanctuary","tag-prince-georges-county","tag-scales-and-tales"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28701"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28703,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28701\/revisions\/28703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.maryland.gov\/dnr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}