Save the Dunes to celebrate monarch migration with music fest

Apr 17, 2024

MICHIGAN CITY — As monarchs begin to migrate through Indiana, Save the Dunes is celebrating their annual journey with a music festival.

The Monarch Music Fest will take place Sept. 10 from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Brewery Lodge & Supper Club in Michigan City. The event will feature music from the MilkBillies, Chicago Drum Battery and Massasauga, cocktails, food and yard games.

The festival will take place Sept. 10.

Tickets are $50 online $60 at the door; they can be purchased at savedunes.org/events/. Tickets include food and one drink ticket.

A portion of the festival proceeds will go towards Save the Dune's habitat conservation work.

In an email to the Times, Save the Dunes Program Director Katie Hobgood said habitat fragmentation is a "critical threat to monarch populations."

Connected habitats give monarch safe places to stop and refuel during their long migration. In Northwest Indiana, development has divided much of the natural landscape; in recent decades monarch populations have dropped. There are two populations of monarchs in North America: the eastern, which migrates to Mexico where it overwinters, and the western, which makes the trek to California. From 1996 to 2020, the eastern monarch population dropped 88%, from an estimated 383 million to just under 45 million. Since the 1980s, the western overwintering population has dropped more than 99%, from 4.5 million to 1,914 monarchs, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Save the Dunes is working to restore monarch habitat through native plant installations and invasive species management.

The nonprofit works with Indiana Dunes National Park to administer a Great Lakes Restoration Initiative grant that goes towards improving habitat connectivity and in 2021, Save the Dunes published a "Pollinator Garden Landscaping Guide" that helps Region homeowners choose native plants that support pollinators. The guide can be accessed at savedunes.org/resources.

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Janet Moore Schrader of Lake Side, Mich., works on her "Lake Michigan Mermaids."

Janet Moore Schrader of Lake Side, Mich., works on her "Lake Michigan Mermaids."

Master sculptor Isabelle Gasse of Quebec City, Canada, works on “Trying to Fix the World,” which features a young girl wearing a gas mask putting a Band-Aid on cracks in the ground. The Singing Sands Sand Sculpting Festival continues Sunday, with sculptors working until 3 p.m. to perfect their artwork.

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Municipal Reporter

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