KNOX COUNTY, Ind. (WTHI)-- Every year hundreds of monarch butterflies migrate from Southern Canada to Mexico.
Many butterflies made a pitstop at fox ridge park in Vincennes Ind.
Abby Coffman said Saturday was a great day for her.
"We're learning so much from how they get from here to there and they're not like flying like straight like a bird they're flying," said Coffman.
She and many were at the first-ever Monarch Madness Day.
The event gave people the chance to understand the monarchs better and where they come from.
People were able to study the health of the butterflies by tagging them.
Coffman told us butterflies are more important than we may know.
"Well, they're pollinators. without everything in our ecosystem, everything would go bad," said Coffman.
But they could be in danger.
"The numbers have been declining probably for the last 20 years"
Curt Coffman is the Dean of Science Engineering and Mathematics at Vincennes University.
He said some of the pesticides we use to kill some of the native plants the butterflies use for food and laying larvae.
"We have roundup ready, we can spray the field their loss of habitat is a huge problem across the midwest"
Many believe keeping the monarchs alive is something we can control, but it just takes more understanding.
"We're actually bringing attention to it so people will know ok so this is species is actually native and it's important to our ecosystem," said Coffman.
If you would like more information on the monarch butterflies, click here.
