LAWRENCE — If climate change has been a rotten deal this year for Franklin County grain farmers and Texas ranchers, it’s going to be just as bad for migrating monarch butterflies. Monarch Watch director Chip Taylor, Lawrence, told the Lawrence Journal-World that the brightly-colored orange butterflies face especially dire conditions this year as they pass through the Midwest on their yearly migration to northern Mexico. The drought and huge wildfires have blasted much of the plant life in the southern Great Plains, Taylor said. That has resulted in what he called “a thousand miles of hell” for the monarchs — a nearly flowerless, nectarless and waterless area they’ll have to fly through.
Monday, Oct. 10, 11 a.m.
