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ODOT Asking Ohioans To Donate Milkweed Seed Pods

monarchbutterflygarden.net

The Ohio Department of Transportation is asking Ohioans to collect milkweed seed pods to help bring back the declining population of the monarch butterfly, create more wildlife habitat and help agriculture.ODOT has been putting pollinator-friendly plants along roadsides since 2014 to help bees, butterflies and other animals. This year, the department is asking the public to collect milkweed seed pods over the next two months and give them to the nearest county Soil and Water Conservation District. Collectors are likely to find the pods along the edges of lots and alleys along roadsides, and in local parks and abandoned lots. Monarchs migrate during the spring and summer months. The larvae left behind during the migrations need milkweed to survive. In the past 20 years, milkweed has disappeared from corn and soybean fields in the Midwest, and the monarch population has declined by 80 percent. The department says every roadside acre getting pollinator-friendly plants saves taxpayers 45 dollars in mowing costs.

More information may be found through this link: http://monarchjointventure.org/news-events/news/ohio-pollinator-habitat-initiative-becomes-mjv-partner

Jim has been with WCBE since 1996. Before that he worked as a reporter at another Columbus radio station, and for three newspapers in Southwest Florida.