An event was organized on Saturday at the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center (NGLVC) where around 75 people tried their hands at catching and tagging monarch butterflies. Northland College student and NGLVC intern Michaela Fisher headed the event, which will be again organized next Saturday.

NGLVC intern Michaela Fisher, who headed the program, said through Monarch Watch, a citizen's science project, a tagging program was organized. It is a program in which anyone can take part.

"We're gonna go out and try and catch monarchs and we put these super small tags on them. At the bottom it's got this serial code that you enter into your data sheet and then you submit it online", said Fisher.

The team hopes that once the monarchs enter south, someone will find them and enter their code online. Once the code is entered, they can match it up and know how many butterflies are able to make there.

It is very important to such measures, as a 90% decline has come in monarchs population size owing to factors like habitat loss, climate change and pesticide use. Amongst all, habitat loss is the most significant as at the stage of being a caterpillar, they eat just milkweed. If they will not get it then they have nothing to eat.

One of the ways to help monarchs except getting involved in citizen's science programs like the one they have organized is to plant milkweed. You can also help by creating more awareness on the subject.