Out of the Rough and into the Sky The Monarchs in the Rough program is starting to soar throughout Ontario also recognized the need to have milkweed on their properties. These courses have, for the past few seasons, stopped cutting down milkweed and instead allowed it to flourish in naturalized areas of o be honest, I started here 10 years ago and I don’t think I’d their courses. They’ve also embraced the “Monarchs in the Rough” seen them for four or five years.” program, which is promoted by the Audubon Society. All of this Paul Halk, the superintendent at Donalda Club, is speaking on a bright September day about the disappearance of Monarch has seen an improvement in the Monarch population, which some butterflies. Once plentiful on the urban Toronto property, they have pegged as declining by as much as 90 percent in recent years. “To me, this just makes sense,” simply started vanishing. Golf says Halk. “Everyone I’ve spoken courses were hardly the main to about it thinks it is a good culprit for the disappearance— Often referred to as the “king of the butterfly,” there are a lot of reasons for idea. It is beneficial and every Monarchs have declined over the past decade, the diminishing number of course has an area where they Monarchs, from changing can do it. So why wouldn’t they?” though no one really agrees to the reasons winter habitat in Mexico, to use Often referred to as the “king for their diminishing numbers. of pesticides, and the increase of the butterfly,” Monarchs have in agriculture that eliminated declined over the past decade, milkweed, which is the plant though no one really agrees to Monarchs lay their eggs on, the reasons for their diminishing numbers. Some say it is due and which the caterpillars eat as they grow and head into to pressure on the land where they hibernate in Mexico, which metamorphosis. But Halk is starting to see a comeback—at least on his property. is being threatened by hunting, and logging, while others blame “I’ve seen a lot of them this summer,” he says. Why? Halk and urbanization, and specifically the use of herbicides enabled by the Donalda, along with numerous other courses in Ontario, have not advent of herbicide-resistant crops. After all, Monarch caterpillars only started to recognize the importance of the butterflies, but eat strictly milkweed, and if it disappears, there’s a problem. In
By Robert Thompson Photos by Lesley Thomas, Scarboro G&CC and Brenda Forder, Donalda Club.
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