East Northport teen Abby Taft is a friend for threatened butterflies
Abby Taft, a junior at Elwood-John H. Glenn High School, recently spearheaded the creation of a native milkweed garden at Wawapek Preserve in Cold Spring Harbor. Credit: Debra Morrison
An East Northport teen with a love of monarch butterflies is taking steps to combat the pollinators’ declining population.
Abby Taft, a junior at Elwood-John H. Glenn High School, recently spearheaded the creation of a native milkweed garden at the 32-acre Wawapek Preserve in Cold Spring Harbor. Taft also hosted a series of lectures to educate community members on the butterflies’ struggles and the importance of conservation efforts.
Taft, a Girl Scout, tackled the project in pursuit of her Gold Award, the highest achievement attainable within the Girl Scouts of the USA. She is a member of Troop 2597.
“I just always thought they were very beautiful,” Taft said of monarch butterflies. “When I was young, I found a monarch caterpillar in my garden and I took it and raised it, and I got to release it as a full-grown butterfly. So, that really sparked my particular interest in them.”
Taft, 16, said she got the idea for her project after seeing an advertisement from a wildlife conservation group explaining how monarch butterflies are on the “threatened list” due to factors ranging from deforestation to climate change. For example, monarchs occupied 20.97 hectares (almost 52 acres) while overwintering in Mexico in 1997, compared to just 0.67 hectares (less than 2 acres) in 2014, she said.
The new garden, which is 15 feet by 15 feet, includes three types of milkweed — butterfly, common and swamp — surrounded by a 5-foot deer fence, Taft said. It was built this past summer with assistance from her parents, fellow scouts and volunteers from the nonprofit North Shore Land Alliance.
As for Taft’s lectures, she has held two at the preserve and one at the Suffolk Y JCC in Commack. She also shared tips on how to help butterflies — such as avoiding the use of pesticides — during a pollinator festival in the summer at Sunken Meadow State Park in Kings Park.
“A lot of people don’t really know about monarch butterflies, so I wanted to raise awareness,” Taft said.
Officials with the North Shore Land Alliance, which is based in Mill Neck and owns and manages the preserve, called Taft “a natural at community outreach.”
“Abby’s project is a substantial contribution to wildlife and Long Islanders,” said Jane Jackson, the alliance’s director of stewardship. “Abby is helping to not only provide habitat for this iconic butterfly species and other pollinators, but also educate Wawapek visitors and others about what they can do at home to help.”
Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.
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