By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
Nature plays by its own rules. Saturday's 11th annual Butterfly Festival at the Kansas Wetlands Education Center drew in more than 600 people - the most since COVID - but just a handful of monarch butterflies to tag. KWEC Director Curtis Wolf said there were plenty of other bugs and butterflies to catch, and several activities for attendees to enjoy.
"We had a decent number of monarchs here about two weeks ago," he said. "We had some then but it wasn't just loaded like it has been in other years. I really don't know if possibly the dry weather has pushed them a little further east again. That's happened in other years."
Wolf said approximately 15 monarchs were tagged Saturday. Attendees also had the opportunity to see a performance by Kansas City-based StoneLion Puppet Theatre, hear about the importance of bees, and see a variety of insects in the invertebrate zoo. Wolf said approximately 350 people attended the festival last year, and nearly 800 attended before COVID in 2019.
"We definitely want to thank our volunteers," he said. "An event this size definitely can't happen without a lot of people involved. We had some wonderful workers this year and they really did an excellent job with all the people."
The Friday before the festival, KWEC hosted a ribbon cutting for its new Melody Marsh inside the pollinator garden at the facility.