2nd Annual Brookings Monarch Butterfly Festival

by | Aug 18, 2019 | Culture, Education and Learning, Youth

2nd Annual Brookings Monarch Butterfly Festival

Presented by Brookings Oregon Monarch Advocates (BOMA)

 

Brookings, Oregon September 7, 2019 – For any individuals or families in the Southern Oregon/Northern California region who wish to learn about the Western Monarch Butterfly population and what you can do to help them (and other pollinators) survive and prosper.

 

Brookings was the first city in Oregon to receive the designation of “Monarch City” in May 2017 from Monarch City USA, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping the Monarch Butterfly recover city by city.  To celebrate the iconic Monarch Butterfly, whose multigenerational migration and metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly has captured the imagination of millions of Americans, young and young-at-heart, Brookings Oregon Monarch Advocates (BOMA) is proud to present the 2nd Annual Brookings Monarch Festival.  This special family-friendly, pet-friendly, free admission event will be held on Saturday, September 7, 2019 from 11 AM until 4 PM in beautiful Azalea Park in Brookings.

Attendees will be able to view live caterpillars, chrysalises and adult monarch butterflies reared from eggs by BOMA volunteers and monarchs will be released near the end of the festival between 3 and 4 PM.  There will be exciting craft tables, face painting and rock painting stations as well as a kids’ costume mini-parade at 1 PM followed by a pet costume walk at 1:30 PM. Scientific exhibits will detail the metamorphosis and migration of the Western Monarch and the kids can take part in a larger-than-life “Life Cycle Experience” from an egg to a butterfly.

A food truck will be on-site, as well as the Masonic Child ID Program, a beekeeper and the Curry County Master Gardeners will be able to answer your plant-related questions.  Milkweed and small souvenir monarch-themed merchandise will be sold by BOMA volunteers to raise money towards next year’s festival.

This festival promises to be a worthwhile, educational, fun event which has garnered praise from many of the 500 to 700 people who attended our first Monarch Festival last year.

Other sponsors of this event include the City of Brookings and the Tribal Council of the Tolowa Dee-Ni’ Nation in Smith River, California.

 

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About Brookings Oregon Monarch Advocates

Founded by Vicki Mion and Kitty Demry around 2014, Brookings Oregon Monarch Advocates is now an active group of locals acting as citizen scientists who have come together to help restore a safe migration path for monarch butterflies up and down the NW coastal communities.  Little was known about the Western Monarch migration until Dr. David James, a Washington entomologist along with citizen scientists, proved it through “tagging”. It is thrilling to have Monarchs tagged in Brookings discovered and photographed hundreds of miles south in their overwintering sites in California.

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