Manorville teen makes monarch waystation at Long Island Game Farm
Delaney Campbell, 17, recently spearheaded the creation of a waystation for monarch butterflies at the Long Island Game Farm in Manorvile. Credit: Scott Campbell
When Delaney Campbell noticed that some monarch butterflies had been using a waystation she recently created, her heart was aflutter.
Campbell, 17, of Manorville, coordinated the installation of the new waystation — intended to serve as a "stopping place" for monarchs during their annual migration — over the course of two days this summer at the Long Island Game Farm in Manorville, she said.
She was inspired to help the winged insects because of the dramatic drop in populations of North American monarch butterflies in recent decades due to factors including habitat loss, toxic pesticides and climate change.
“The first day that I actually saw a monarch, I cried because I was so excited,” said Campbell, who pursued the project to earn the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest achievement attainable within Scouting America (formerly the Boy Scouts of America). “Ever since I was a kid, monarch butterflies have always fascinated me, so I wanted to do something that I knew would help them as well as help other people learn about what they do for us.”
To create the waystation, the Manorville teen recruited a group of about two dozen friends, family members and fellow scouts to first clear overgrowth from a 20-by-20-foot area on the farm’s grounds and then lay topsoil and wood chips before erecting a PVC fence. They added plants — including butterfly bushes, butterfly weed and swamp milkweed — to serve as a “nectar garden” for the monarchs to refuel as well as to lay their eggs during their migration to Mexico, she said.
The waystation also features a butterfly-shaped sign that includes information on the monarch's life cycle and its migration patterns — as well as a series of “fun facts,” such as one that states how monarch caterpillars can consume up to 200 times their original weight in milkweed leaves, she said.
Delaney, the senior patrol leader for Scouting America Troop 1616 in Wading River and a senior at Eastport-South Manor High School in Manorville, said she has been regularly monitoring the waystation since its creation for “signs of life.”
“I look for eggs, I look for leaves being eaten, I look for caterpillars and I look for the butterflies themselves,” she said. “Monarchs are actually very important to our environment, because they are pollinators.”
The game farm's president, Melinda Novak, praised the eco-friendly teen for her "can-do spirit."
"Watching scouts like Delaney take charge and bring projects like this monarch waystation to life is awesome," Novak said. "It’s impossible not to be impressed by their can-do spirit. They’re not just talking about helping the planet, they’re actually getting their hands dirty and making it happen, one pollinator-friendly garden at a time."
Nominate a Long Islander who goes above and beyond or serves as an inspiration to their community. Send details and photograph to Michael Ebert, michael.ebert@newsday.com (photos should be high-resolution). Photos maybe used in other publications affiliated with Newsday.
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.
