David Harding

We live in Souderton, PA. Our interest in monarchs came as a result of our granddaughters' family project in 2000. We began raising caterpillars in a 10 gallon aquarium in our home. For the next several years we added larger aquariums. After a visit to Tyler Arboretum in Media, Pa., we were inspired to have an outdoor butterfly house built on our property in 2006. This gave us the capability to provide the habitat with various host and nectar plants that would allow monarchs to thrive and reproduce. This worked so well that in 2008, we raised 1100 monarchs.

Since the monarchs don't usually come to us until early summer, we wanted to find a way to make our butterfly house interesting and fun earlier in the spring. We provide host and nectar plants for a number of other species of butterflies.
We are members of Monarch Watch, an educational outreach program sponsored by the University Of Kansas. We have been involved in their tagging program since 2003. This research program helps biologists to track the monarchs in their migration to Mexico and monitor their population.

In February, 2009, we had the incredible experience of visiting the monarch sanctuaries in Central Mexico. We saw firsthand what it's like each winter as millions of monarchs fill the air with their flashing wings.
We are available to present monarch butterfly programs for schools, churches and other organizations. We present information on the preservation of monarch butterflies and their habitat. We use multi-media presentations along with live visuals when they are available. Depending on the venue, we close our program with either a moral or spiritual emphasis.

We also host "Open House" events several times during the summer when people can meet us and visit our facility.

We have a web site: www.marvelousmonarchs.wikispaces.com. You can also find us on Facebook. There we have our "Home page" as well as a group page called "Marvelous Monarchs". If you are interested in helping to preserve the Monarch butterfly and its habitat, or just want to share information, we invite you to join our group.