Romy McCloskey is a costume designer and skilled embroiderer who is used to performing intricate needlework.
Recently, she used her skills to save the life of an in.jur.ed Monarch butterfly with a broken wing.
McCloskey keeps butterflies in her yard, “I knew humans were threatening them.”
“I knew we needed to help pollinators for the survival of all of us, but I didn’t know how much these little guys were up against them until I got involved in helping them.”
“So my garden grew, my knowledge increased, and my heart also grew, more than I could ever imagine.”
Unfortunately, her cat doesn’t share her ideas and knocks over one of the cocoons while playing with it as a toy.
“It’s got a crack in the cocoon. I thought, ‘Please don’t let it die. ”
The damage it suffers is during pupation, which is the final stage of development before an adult butterfly emerges from its cocoon.
The butterfly couldn’t fly because it relied on the symmetry of its wings to help them get into the air.
Thankfully, however, McCloskey was on a mission to fix it. After seeing a video her friend sent her, she was ready.
“I thought, since I designed, cut, and put together of costumes… that I might give this a try.”
The surgery looked like it was a success, the wing seemed to be in good working order, but she needed to wait and see if it worked.
She put the butterfly in a cage with some food so it could recover overnight, hopefully.
“I woke up the next morning and said, ‘Please stay alive,’ she saw the butterfly moving, so she took it out, hoping it might fly away.
“He climbed on my finger, checked around, and then took off,” she said. “He landed in some bushes, and sure enough, when I got to him, he was already up in the direction of the sun.”
What amazing work! This is especially important since the Monarch butterfly’s population is decreasing.
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