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CORTLAND – At a recent city council meeting, Mayor Deidre Petrosky announced May to be Monarch Butterfly Education Month in the city.
Petrosky said in March she received an email encouraging her to join the Mayors’ Monarch Pledge — a program put on by the National Wildlife Foundation.
“I knew nothing about it so I did my research and found the population (of monarch butterflies) has dropped 90 percent since the 1990s. That really shocked me,” Petrosky said.
The Mayors’ Monarch Pledge program launched in 2015 to engage cities and communities in monarch and pollinator conservation, according to the foundation’s website. There are over 300 different communities nationwide that have signed the pledge. Of those communities, there are 11 in Ohio and Cortland is the lone community in Trumbull and Mahoning counties.
One of the reasons Petrosky signed the pledge is personal.
“I think monarch butterflies are really cool. For lots of kids, and I remember doing this as well, we raised Monarch butterflies in school from the time they were a caterpillar to a butterfly. That’s a magical process,” Petrosky said.
Read more in Monday’s Tribune Chronicle.