29
SPRING 2025
WORDS
Kara Pothier
ILLUSTRATIONS
Vivian Shih
PEGGY CAMPBELL-RUSH '76 is all
aflutter as she crosses seeing the monarch
butterfly migration off her bucket list.
"I
've been intrigued by the monarch butterfly since
I was a little girl," says Peggy Campbell-Rush '76,
remembering late August days in Ship Bottom, New Jersey,
when she'd try to catch one of the hundreds that flew
around her.
What she didn't know back then was that her childhood
wonder placed her in the middle of a natural marvel that
she would later come to know intimately: the majestic, yet
somewhat mysterious, monarch migration.
Each year, tens of millions of monarch butterflies — with
their iconic orange wings and black and white markings —
travel a two-way migration over the course of about
eight months. First, they spend the summer breeding on
milkweed plants throughout the eastern U.S. and Canada.
In late August, they journey over 3,000 miles south to the
Michoacán mountains of Mexico, where they rest for the
winter. Then come spring, they fly north again to start a
new breeding season.
29
SPRING 2025
