Relationship With Humans
The monarch is the state insect of Alabama, Idaho, Illinois, Minnesota, Texas, and the state butterfly of Vermont and West Virginia. It was nominated in 1990 as the national insect of the United States of America, along with the honeybee (Apis mellifera), but the legislation did not pass.
Many people like to attract monarchs by growing a butterfly garden with a specific milkweed species. Others enjoy raising them for pleasure or for educational purposes. For migrating flocks, sanctuaries have been created at favorite wintering locations, and these migrations can generate significant tourism revenue.
Many schools also enjoy growing and attending to monarch butterflies, starting with the caterpillar form. When the butterflies reach adulthood, they are then released into the wild.
Some organizations, such as the Cape May Bird Observatory, have monarch identification tagging programs. Plastic stickers are placed on the wing of the insect with identification information. Tracking information is used to study their migration patterns, including how far and where they fly.
The main villain on The Venture Bros. (a cartoon on the Adult Swim block of Cartoon Network) takes his name, costume and overall lifestyle from monarch butterflies.
Read more about this topic: Monarch Butterfly
Famous quotes containing the words relationship with, relationship and/or humans:
“Henry David Thoreau, who never earned much of a living or sustained a relationship with any woman that wasn’t brotherly—who lived mostly under his parents’ roof ... who advocated one day’s work and six days “off” as the weekly round and was considered a bit of a fool in his hometown ... is probably the American writer who tells us best how to live comfortably with our most constant companion, ourselves.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)
“Strange and predatory and truly dangerous, car thieves and muggers—they seem to jeopardize all our cherished concepts, even our self-esteem, our property rights, our powers of love, our laws and pleasures. The only relationship we seem to have with them is scorn or bewilderment, but they belong somewhere on the dark prairies of a country that is in the throes of self-discovery.”
—John Cheever (1912–1982)
“It is quite a common and vulgar thing among humans to understand, foresee, know and predict the troubles of others. But oh what a rare thing it is to predict, know, foresee and understand one’s own troubles.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)