Annual Monarch Fest!

Be sure to join us on Saturday the 31st of August for our annual festival when we celebrate our beloved monarchs and lots of other Lepidopterans (butterflies and moths)!  From 11am-4pm you can enjoy crafts for children, a monarch parade (wear your best monarch attire!), watch monarch tagging demonstrations, tour our pollinator gardens with a native plant expert, join in other activities–scavenger hunt, a live book reading, by the author and coloring activities.

In 2022, the International Union for Conservation of Nature added the migratory monarch butterfly, known for their flight to California and Mexico during the winter, to their “Red List,” a compilation of animals that they deem endangered. The native populations of this butterfly have shrunk by at least 22% in the past decade, due to numerous factors, including deforestation, pesticides, and climate change. Pesticides and herbicides used in large-scale agriculture kill butterflies and milkweed, the plant that adults and larvae feed, and are dependent, on. Drought, wildfires, and extreme weather and temperatures caused by climate change damage and kill many monarchs as well.

In celebration of these beautiful and extraordinary creatures (“Adirondack” monarchs migrate about 3,000 miles to their wintering grounds), the VIC brings you Monarch Fest every Labor Day weekend.  See you there!