Community members participate in Louisville Zoo’s latest conservation project

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) - Community members gathered Saturday morning at Bellarmine University to participate in the Louisville Zoo’s ‘Monarchs and Milkweed Pollinator Habitat Project’.

The project was created by the Zoo as a conservation effort to protect monarch butterflies and other native pollinators. Both Seven Counties Services and Bellarmine University have joined the project.

In a press release, President and CEO of Seven Counties Services Abby Drane said, “We’re excited about our partnership with the Louisville Zoo to create a monarch waystation at our Child & Family West clinic. We appreciate this unique way that we can contribute to a local conservation campaign to preserve the monarch migration cycle. It also serves as an educational and therapeutic tool for the children who spend time on our playground at this clinic.”

The project aims to provide educational resources to help the community become actively involved in the creation of monarch butterfly habitats. The habitats consist of milkweed plants monarch butterflies require to complete their life cycle.

“A Monarch Watch Certified pollinator garden is not just a wonderful project from the standpoint of expanding the habitat for important pollinators like bees and butterflies, but it enhances our campus environment and programming, too,” said Bellarmine University’s Dr. Kate Bulinski. “We’re going to be using this pollinator garden for educational purposes for our environmental science courses as well as for student research projects. This is part of a broader effort to make our campus more pollinator-friendly. Additionally, this year we launched a new beekeeping club. We’ll be starting a few hives this spring at the Bellarmine Farm with plans for planting additional pollinator gardens in the years to come.”

The Louisville Zoo has been active in monarch butterfly conservation since 2016.