March 14th, 2022 is National Learn About Butterflies Day! Today we celebrate by singing about the joy these creatures bring across the western hemisphere.
In the most recent episode of the Green Room, environmental activist Ben Gundersheimer sings "Senorita Mariposa", a bilingual song that accompanies his children's book that was published in 2019.
Gundersheimer is an Emmy Award-winning musician and continues to bring his bi-lingual songs to local communities, playing the Ann Arbor Summer Festival in 2018. In this interview, he speaks on the monarch butterfly-the inspiration for "Seniorita Mariposa", citizen science, and what actions citizens across the US can take to ensure the success of this delicate species.
Ben has traveled to the mountains of Michoacan, to view where the monarchs spend the winter and continues to advocate for the species.
Additional information about the challenges the monarch butterfly population faces was shared in a recent issue of Issues of the Environment. In this broadcast, Erin Zylstra, a postdoctoral researcher in Michigan State University's department of integrative biology, joined WEMU's David Fair to discuss the human impact that has put the monarch on a path toward extinction.