It has been a long stretch since we have had the pleasure of such a significant sight. In 2015, Merle Reuse, a lifelong resident of Sonoma County, California, became enthralled with monarch butterflies and devoted most of his time to learning about their plight and how to support the species to enhance their propagation. Merle recruited Safari West Landscape Manager Sergio Ramirez. He, too, became captivated by the challenge of developing and maintaining a monarch butterfly habitat, providing milkweed, the preferred food, and a platform for egg laying.

Along with milkweed, Sergio and Merle provided butterfly “cages”; for housing eggs and protecting the caterpillars and their chrysalides from predation until the emergence of the butterflies, which Sergio releases at Safari West. This year, the project’s significance was evident to Merle and Sergio. Since the program’s inception in 2015, monarchs throughout their range have come close to extinction. The current population is estimated to be only 5% of what it was in 1980. Habitat loss due to urban development and converting critical monarch habitats into agricultural land have taken their toll. Climate change brought searing hot summers and torrential winter rains detrimental to monarchs. Along with pesticides’ added toll on monarch populations, we feel fortunate to see these fascinating butterflies.

All about Merle: Merle Reuser is known as the Daffodil Man. In 2020, Chris Smith, a reporter for the Press Democrat wrote, “And he’s planted here and throughout the county untold thousands of the bulbs that replicate and sprout daffodils year after year. At 72, the retired operator of a portable sawmill is America’s Daffodil Man.”