A President’s Monarchy

Every September, thousands of uninvited guests descend on the home of Kansas State University’s president, Jon Wefald. They come and go with the winds, and occasionally linger there, sometimes as long as four days.

“It’s such a magical time of year,” says Mr. Wefald. “You look up and see them everywhere” — multitudes of orange-and-black monarch butterflies in the flowers and shrubs outside his house.

Mr. Wefald first noticed that his home was a stopover on the butterflies’ migration path around 1988. Since then he has watched their arrival each September on their flight from the Midwest and lower provinces of Canada to the mountains of central Mexico.

“It’s one of those fun things you can look forward to, like Thanksgiving and Christmas,” says Mr. Wefald. “The monarchs are coming! But you never know how many.”

This year, 4,000 to 6,000 of the winged visitors alighted at the president’s home, according to an estimate by the head of the university’s entomology department. Their numbers vary with the temperature, rainfall, and other conditions along their route. During a peak in the Great Plains monarch population in 2001, says Mr. Wefald, an estimated 100,000 descended on his garden.

To honor the colorful pilgrims, the university renamed a campus street for them: Butterfly Lane.

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http://chronicle.com Section: Short Subjects Volume 52, Issue 8, Page A8