Yorktown Creates Butterfly Sanctuary

The Yorktown Garden Club and town officials began planting a new garden on Thursday at Willow Park that will become a monarch butterfly sanctuary.

Volunteers planted milkweed plants that nourish monarch caterpillars. The butterfly sanctuary is intended to sustain the monarchs as they migrate north and south to their summer and winter habitats in North America.

“Urban sprawl has a detrimental effect on the monarch butterfly by disturbing areas where it can feed and reproduce. This new butterfly sanctuary represents our community’s effort to maintain a healthy environment for people and the natural world,” said Supervisor Matt Slater.

Willow Park was chosen as the site for the butterfly sanctuary because it is a passive recreation area that is not used by club sport teams or by the town’s recreation programs. The milkweed planting is the first phase of work at Willow Park. Town officials hope to begin work on a community garden near the butterfly sanctuary in 2021.

Earlier this week Yorktown opened three public parks that had been closed under the New York State on Pause order to limit the spread of coronavirus. The reopened parks—Paw Park, Downing Park and Veterans’ Field—are for individual use and not for large groups. The town’s playgrounds remain closed.

“We felt that we could ease back into providing recreational facilities for kids to use,” said Supervisor Slater of the reopening.