The butterfly lady of Inverary

Aug 21, 2019

Susan Sutherland of Loughborough lake has been dubbed 'the butterfly lady of Inverary'. Susan and her husband, Ken Burns have built a safe butterfly hatching habitat called 'the monarch mansion' where the full spectrum of the stages of a monarch butterfly's life cycle can be observed and appreciated up close. The enclosed habitat boasts dozens of tiny eggs on milkweed leaves, hungry caterpillars of all sizes, with some already in a J-hang position getting ready to become a chrysalis, which hang in rows along the ceiling boards in a beautiful abundance. The chrysalis phase allows the catapillars to metamorph into beautiful monarch butterflies. Susan is expecting to release over 50 new monarchs in just this week alone, and several hundred by the fall. 

Over the past 20 years, the number of monarch butterflies have drastically declined, partly due to climate change, pesticide use and a rapid decrease in milkweed plants, which are essential for the insect's survival. Susan, an environmentalist and outdoor enthusiast, has been contributing to the repopulation efforts for monarchs for several years, with her growing hatching habitat and through cultivation of milkweed plants, which are native to Canada and the U.S.