CHARLEVOIX COUNTY, Mich., (WPBN/WGTU) -- Another northern Michigan community has joined a nationwide fight to save the monarch butterfly.
A field of milkweed can serve as a habitat for monarch butterflies and its fields like the one in Walloon Lake that have led the village to become Michigan's fifth Monarch City, USA.
Being a Monarch City means protecting the endangered butterfly, whose numbers are down 30% for last year, according to resident Lauri Juday.
Juday is a pollinator consultant who has planted several fields in the Walloon Lake-area.
Juday said that saving a species is a full community effort.
"We need to do everything we can to help get them off that list and see their numbers come up, and that means limiting spraying, planting milkweed everywhere we have vacant land, planting native plants and being good stewards of what we're given, as far as the land goes," Juday said.
"This helps the farmers and agriculture business because the bees will make a comeback at the same time," Juday said.
Juday said that Walloon Lake will be working closely with the other northern Michigan monarch cities.
Those communities include: Boyne City, Kalkaska, and Elk Rapids.