Hello world, welcome to WFHR's Rapids Report, probably brought to you by Crockett Sceptic
for this July 14th, 2025.
Have your host James here, welcoming in the studio, one of our favorite people.
We have Kathy McGrath with us, her husband Pat is also here, thank you both for being
here.
We appreciate the time.
You're welcome.
Yeah.
We're going to be talking with Kathy about monarchs and Kathy of course is our local monarch
expert.
We've talked to Kathy many times about this.
I feel like Kathy, when we get together most of the time, it's to kind of highlight an
event coming up and we're going to wrap up with a great event coming up, but oftentimes
we're really focusing on events and promoting that along with other things.
Today we're really going to just dive into monarchs and talk a little bit more about
that.
I'm really excited about that.
Perfect.
But I come to you Kathy and I say, I do, thanks to you, but let's say I didn't know anything
about monarchs and I'm just really interested and really intrigued by this.
Where do you begin?
Well, I can talk for hours, but I'll try to limit it today.
Usually I talk about the life cycle of the monarch to begin with and the stages that
we go through with the monarchs.
Basically, when you are starting out, the monarch starts out as an egg.
It is teeny, teeny tiny, actually the size of a pinhead and it's kind of off-colored,
white, more of a cream color.
If you know what an old-fashioned lemon squeezer looks like, it actually has ridges on the
side, but you don't see those with the naked eye because it is so teeny, tiny, small.
But Pat and I go out hunting for monarch eggs and people say, really, that's an egg because
they are teeny, teeny, tiny.
And I've got one here to show James, little white dot.
And so when we find an egg, we bring it in and take off the whole leaf that that egg
is on and then cut a little circle around it because if we're collecting eggs, we can't
keep all these great big leaves.
Within three to five days, a tiny caterpillar is going to emerge from that egg, which there
is one in there.
You need really sharp eyes to see it.
So when I was teaching kindergarten, it was helpful with the eyes of five or six-year-olds.
So it's in the egg for three to five days and then outcomes that teeny, tiny caterpillar.
Cathy, you know what, you should probably tell them to one of the reasons why we do this.
That's true.
You tell them.
Basically, the population of monarch butterflies has dropped since 1990 by about 80 to 90 percent.
And, you know, a lot of it is because so much air culture is now round up ready.
And years ago, milkweed would grow in corn fields along with the corn.
It does the name work.
And then pesticides and herbicides are a big problem because she found out one time when
I was in Washington meeting and she collected a bunch of caterpillars at a friend's house
down by Pete and well.
And that night she called me and says, well, there's green tracks all over the bottom of
the aquarium.
And I said, where'd you get the milkweed all by a potato field?
I said, no, they spray.
And everything in the aquarium died.
All the caterpillars.
But anyway, this helps in nature five out of a hundred become butterflies.
We get about a 90 percent turnout.
So it's helping them.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for that, Pat.
Thank you.
Appreciate that.
Thank you.
And one, you know, just piggybacking on that a little bit, we've heard a lot of, it's been
a good thing to see on the rise, the information and saving our bees and talking about our pollinators.
What we just did in May and having our yards grow a little bit longer for our pollinators
and some of this butterflies and monarch in particular is a beautiful butterfly.
The story is, I think almost one of the more common stories to know in insect culture and
some of that, all that being said, I don't think that we know nearly enough about them.
And I don't think, and to that, to lean into the importance of them and how important
they are in the insect food chain, if you will, and pollinating in so many of these things.
They're not just pretty to look at.
They're a hard work and butterfly.
They're a hard work and insect.
They do a lot of good for us.
Correct.
Of course, the only place that you're ever going to find a monarch egg is on milkweed.
And so that's the other part of the whole life cycle that you have to have milkweed if
you're going to have monarch butterflies.
So we are a monarch waste station.
Our home is and we have milkweed growing different kinds and we also have nectar flowers
because you need both.
So now when we've been releasing monarchs and we've released probably 250 or so already
this summer, they're looking at the nectar flowers because that's what the butterflies
need.
And milkweed itself, the caterpillars eat the leaves, but the butterflies need the milkweed
blossoms.
And right now, the milkweed is blossoming.
And if you've ever smelled the blossoms of the milkweed, they are really just like lilacs
of them.
Yes, very, very smell really well.
And so that's part of the thing.
So from egg to butterfly is about a month.
They're in the egg three to five days, then they become a caterpillar and they go through
five in-star stages where they shed their skin and get bigger.
And then when they're about the size of your little finger, they're ready to make the
chrysalis.
And the difference between a chrysalis and a cocoon is that moths come out of a cocoon
and butterflies come out of a chrysalis.
So when I was reading Eric Carl's book, the very hungry caterpillar to the kindergartners
and at the end, he says, and out of the cocoon came a beautiful butterfly, the kindergartners
said, he said it wrong because they knew that it was a chrysalis.
And they said, we need to write to Eric Carl and tell him.
And he said it.
I think he's probably already known that.
But a good thing for children to learn is that adults don't know everything and we all
make mistakes.
100%.
I love any opportunity like that.
That's a great story.
That's fantastic.
So once the caterpillar makes the chrysalis, it's in the chrysalis for about two more weeks.
And you can tell when the chrysalis gets dark like this necklace that I'm wearing, when
it gets dark like this, you can tell that the butterflies going to come out in a few
days, usually probably 48 hours from the time you first see it dark like this.
And when the butterfly emerges from the chrysalis, it hangs on that empty shell of the chrysalis,
which is actually transparent.
It's the color inside.
But the chrysalis itself is transparent and it will hang there and just pump its wings
until the wings are all folded out perfect.
Yep.
When it comes out, the wings are the size of your thumbnail.
And then in the two minutes, they pump fluid in and then they are fully, but they're wet
so that you have to let them dry for about two hours before you release them.
I would always teach the kindergartners if you put your two thumbs together and then
put your fingers down, the thumbs are like the abdomen of the butterfly.
And when the butterfly ecloses when it comes out of the chrysalis, those wings are all
tight.
And the first time I ever witnessed it with my own eyes, I'm like, oh, something's wrong.
And then all of a sudden it starts doing this and it just takes, you know, I don't know,
maybe 10 minutes.
I don't think that long is quick.
It's quick.
And they're all just perfect.
And then it will just sit there and keep doing that for a long time.
So the first time I actually witnessed the whole thing, it's just, it really gets you
hooked.
I can only imagine.
Just hearing you talk about it makes you want to do it.
That's really.
I'm curious though, Kathy, when it comes, I didn't hear you mention when they go through
the voice change or it's awkward for them to talk to, no, that was me.
That was my childhood.
When it comes to this point in the evolution of this, of the monarch and everything, this
is where for a lot of us as fans of these butterflies and everything, it gets a really
exciting point for them, but they're just getting going really as a butterfly here.
Right.
So the ones we're releasing right now and throughout the summer, they're only going
to live three to five weeks.
They don't live very long.
So when we're releasing them, we say, go find a mate and female lay lots of eggs because
she can lay up to 500 eggs one at a time.
Wow.
When we're out hunting for eggs, if we ever find a leaf that has two eggs on it, we say double
header.
Nice.
We're so excited.
That's great.
Usually on gravel or dirt roads, he's on one side, I'm on the other side.
We are very careful when we're out hunting because of poison, IV, wood ticks, wild par
snip, all kinds of things.
So we wear long pants, we wear long sleeves, even when it's hot, like it was yesterday,
cover our heads, don't put on any kind of insect spray on our hands because we don't want
that to get on the leaves that we're picking the eggs or caterpillars off of.
So it's a whole process.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And when it comes to one of the things that are one of the touch on with this as well is
for you, Kathy, how long have you been doing this again?
I would say 30 years.
Okay.
So it's been quite a while for you to do this.
While I know that for people listening, Kathy really knows her stuff and sounds so
confident with these things.
I know that the last time you joined us or maybe it was a time before, had somebody say
that they found it interesting and they would love to try something like this.
Well, when Kathy started out, she was just starting out too and just learning and everything.
When encouraged people to get in on this, to both of your points and really the point
of so much of this and everything, we can't have enough people out there doing this.
We can't have too, you know, we could always use more people, caring and being a part
of this.
We're all about education and Pat and I do a lot of presentations for different groups.
And we have people to our driveways because earlier this summer in June, we were one day
we had 67 butterflies that he closed and I'm like, we'd watch it all the time.
We should share it with other people, but we don't know what's going to happen two weeks
down the line so we can't set it up.
So I just put something out on Facebook, sent out emails to customers that I know and
we had people show up in our driveway and everyone just gets so excited, adults as well
as children.
And we teach children how to hold a butterfly so that you're not going to hurt it and
you know, give a short synopsis of the whole life cycle and people really do get hooked
and that's what helping the monarchs is all about to educate people.
And while we welcome everybody and certainly adults, retired people, anybody out there,
the more we can get kids involved and get them interested in this, they grow up to adults
that care about this, they grow into seniors that care about this, it's so vital to this
process.
That's great to hear.
It's better for them than watching their phone or iPad or whatever, one thing I want
to say is that the library in Rapids probably has a video, it's called The Flight of the
Monarch and it's a great video because it highlights when they first discovered back
in about 1975 that the monarch's winter in Mexico and talks all about that.
So it's really a good educational, and I think kids that love it.
Yeah, I was watching this whole later view.
I've been, I want a little bit of credit, I've been able to focus on the interview the
whole time while there's a caterpillar rolling around.
I thought you knew that was doing that, Kathy.
Oh, I had it in this container and it got out, I guess, but this happens all the time
at our house because when I'm cleaning aquariums and I can't watch everything.
So we've had butterflies make chrysalis, or I mean caterpillars make chrysalis on our
kitchen cabinets underneath the kitchen table.
On the wall, I didn't, dining room, I was also fantastic.
I was just put it in there so it doesn't go too far.
Was there anything else you wanted to touch on with this Kathy, or you want to move on
to the community picnic?
How much time do we have left?
Oh, we got time.
Oh, we got time.
I think you could talk about the ones that we've sent tagging in late August.
Yeah, I'd love to hear about that.
Yes, so the ones in late August into September, those are the migrating monarchs.
They are the ones that aren't going to stay in Wisconsin.
People say, how do they know?
Why don't the ones in June go to Mexico?
Well, there's usually three different generations of monarchs in Wisconsin.
So we're on the second generation right now.
So Pat and I were out hunting yesterday.
We came home with, I think, about 100 eggs and maybe 50 caterpillars of different sizes.
So these yet aren't going to be, well, they'll be close.
Depends on when they eat clothes, if they're going to be migrating ones.
The ones in late August.
Late July would be the ones that would be the start of the migrating group.
So then we tag those and how we tag them.
I brought this to show.
There's a little sticker that goes on the lower wing on the discol cell, which the kindergartners
knew all that terminology.
And then we have a sheet where we record all of that information and it's sent in to monarch
watch.
So we have to put down the number on the clone, on the sticker, whether, when we released
at the date and whether it's a male or a female.
And I just gave Laura a little lesson on that so she can give it to you.
And where we released it from and we have gotten certificates at least, I think, nine times
that one of our butterflies released in Port Edwards was found in Mexico.
This one was found in El Rosario.
It traveled 171, no, 1,712 miles.
And we think it's pretty unbelievable that any of ours have ever been found.
Because in Mexico, there's millions of them down.
Yeah.
But the proof is in the pudding because this is all sent in to monarch watch in Kansas City,
Kansas.
And they put it into a database and then we have to check the numbers.
So we have gotten certificates.
People often wonder, how can they travel that far?
And one, the little critters are tough.
And a lot of people don't realize they look at a butterfly.
And if you look at a butterfly's wings under a microscope, they're covered with scales
just like a fish, which gives them flexibility and strength.
But the other thing is, with the changes of seasons in late August into September, the
location of the sun has changed and the jet stream switches.
So the jet stream during the summer is from south to north, but in the fall winter,
it's north to south.
And what they do is they'll get up thousands of feet and they'll ride the jet stream.
So they're not expending a lot of energy.
And they'll cover a hundred miles a day easily.
And then they'll find a tree at night and rest, nectar up and stuff.
And the other thing is, that's where problems rise sometimes like Texas right now is getting
inundated with rain.
But there have been a number of years when it's extremely dry.
And monarchs need water, moisture, to metabolize their fat.
And there were years where it was so dry in Texas, they died there because they couldn't,
they had enough fat on them, but they couldn't metabolize them.
So, wow.
That's really interesting, Pat.
Thank you.
So, parts of that I think a lot, some of us might have known and I would recommend a
lot to piggyback on what you were saying about the movie, the Monarch movie.
Yes, it's a great movie.
Yes.
A word nominated movie.
Yes.
When I just recently saw the Americas, the Docu series that was on and wonderfully narrated
by Tom Hanks.
They had a segment on monarchs in that.
We saw it.
Oh, did you okay?
It was really well done.
Yes.
And some footage, like I have not seen before on that.
So I have done a bit of homework on this and I've thought about this a number of times
in Pat.
I don't know if I've heard many people describe their flight much very often, like better than
you just did the details that you put to that.
All that being said in 2025, with an endless budget, I couldn't do this, like get from here
to Mexico.
No way.
No way.
You'd never hear from me again.
Nobody know where I was going.
How they, it's still impressive, even hearing all that, even hearing you talk about it
for years, Kathy, and me and you Pat, hearing what you did there, it's still so impressive
to me.
And I, I think like a lot of people, whether it's subconscious or not, one of the things
that we look at with the animal kingdom that we get from the animal kingdom, certainly
everything we've noted about the food chain and what they do for our food and so much
of that, the inspiration that they are, the inspiration that an insect can bring, that
it's, I don't know about anybody else, but perspective is a very important thing to
me.
And I know that I'm feeling grumpy or I'm having a rough day or things are not going
right or I feel like something is impossible.
And I think of the monarch, and I'm like, okay, yeah, you know what I can handle this.
This is so, so bad.
This is so bad.
I spilled the milk.
Big deal.
I'll be okay.
I'll wipe it up.
We'll be fine.
I don't have to fly to Mexico.
I don't, you know, there's certain things that it just, I think that these, and these insects,
these animals do for us even deeper than all the scientific things that they do for
us.
That's really interesting.
And I've given people a chrysalis and a jar like I gave to Laura, you know, they'll
call me and they'll say, that was so interesting to watch.
And they're like, you know, they'd never witnessed it.
And when you can witness something and see it with your own eyes, and that's what was
so great about kindergarten when they had free play and they could do anything in the
room play in the sandbox, build with blocks.
If I had that aquarium there, that's where all their little faces were pressed against
watching.
And you know, telling me about what was going on.
And one time I had a mom in there visiting in one of the little boys who usually wasn't
paying attention to what I was doing because he was watching that aquarium all of a sudden,
he said, one's coming out, one's coming out.
And then we all went watched and pretty soon it was flapping its wings and he said, it's
a boy.
It's a boy.
And so the mom said, how does he know that?
So they explained to her and she's like, is that true?
You know, and this is the thing with children, with adults.
If they see it, they remember it and they learn.
And that was just such a wonderful thing to do.
What a wonderful thing about that.
Also part of that is when kids can teach parents, when kids can teach adult stuff.
That's the awesome.
That's wonderful.
I appreciate that, Kathy.
Yes.
To that point as well, I want to thank both of you and you in particular, Kathy, for your
years of service in our education system, along with continuing to do that.
I don't know if Kathy knows she's retired.
I don't know.
I don't need to tell you, Pat, you know better than that, but I really do appreciate it.
So much of the great, I mean, you think about what you yourself have spun off for so
many individuals and so many passion, with the passion of this and then think about
how many more butterfly, how many more monarchs we're going to be able to protect or save
or even just have born, thanks to that awareness and so much of the work you're putting in.
And certainly you too, Pat, and I appreciate that as well.
I couldn't do this without him because it is a whole lot of work.
And yesterday when we were out in the heat hunting for three hours, he said, when we
die, they'll probably find us in a milkweed rush because we get so tired and we're older
and our eyes aren't as sharp and we just don't bend as easily.
He's safe out there, but thank you very much for the time.
And Pat, that was good.
That's a funny lie.
Let's go.
But before we were let you go, let's talk real quick about the community picnic that is
coming up with Alexander Park.
This will be happening in Port Edwards on Tuesday, July 22nd, 430 to 730.
They even have a rain date set up for July 23rd.
I love when they do that.
They do that.
I think they've been doing that every year.
They said that they're really good at that.
It's going to be a free admission.
Fun for all ages, food and entertainment.
If you've been to the community picnic before, you know what these are.
They're always a lot of fun.
They're going to have a great, the fire department's going to be down there, I believe.
And they'll be also a part of this.
The car show line up will begin at four.
The Port Edwards Jazz Band's going to be down there at 530.
Love those guys.
Great band.
And the butterfly presentation will be down there, Kathy.
That's going to be fun.
What do people, what can people expect with this?
Well, we're hoping that we will have all different parts of the life cycle of the
monarch to show, but we can't guarantee because we deal with nature.
So if we have eggs, caterpillars and some butterflies to release, it will be great.
I've got lots of handouts for adults and children.
And they can just come and talk to us about monarchs.
And maybe as we've been talking about this and you're like, James, you didn't ask her
about this.
Well, now you can ask her.
You can go ahead and ask her.
You can be at the presentation and ask and find out more about this.
Also encourage you to be, if you're going there to find out if you're interested in
volunteering or finding out more about this.
So you could do similarly things to Kathy and Pat here.
I know that I'm mentioning this because I've heard from listeners before, but also my
own mother, who has been very adamant about that.
So I will have to make sure to get your, make sure that she shows up for this event and
she's at the community picnic.
And thank you again for the time.
So the community picnic will be again going on on July 22nd for 30 to 730.
This will happen at a beautiful Alexander Park in Port Edwards.
We're also going to bingo, raffle and car show winners, burgers, hot dogs, beverages,
all down there.
King Kong going to be down there with their truck also.
So be sure to check that out.
Have a great time and enjoy the butterfly presentation at 6 again at the community picnic.
Before let's go, Kathy, if people wanted to reach out to you in particular, is there any
way to do that?
Go to their Facebook page.
Yep.
I'm on Facebook.
They can reach out there.
They can call me.
They can get information from you if they want to have email address, phone number, anything
I'm always willing to talk to people.
Feel free to reach out any time everybody will make sure to hook you up and get you in contact
with Pat, Kathy.
And thank you again for the time, Pat.
Kathy, we appreciate you.
You're welcome.
Thank you.
And thank you to all of you out there for joining us for another edition of WFHR's
Rapids Report.
Probably brought to you by Cockatseptic here at WFHR.com.
