I was a little kid back in the 70s. I remember my mom got me a butterfly net as a present when I was around five. It was so easy to go outside and immediately catch a monarch butterfly.

There was were meadows near my house in Minnesota filled with milkweed plants. It was impossible to turn over a leaf of one of these plants without finding a little striped monarch caterpillar munching away at a leaf. I would often catch one, put it into a jar, and a few days later it would transform into a butterfly.

When my daughter was a young girl in the 2000s, I took her to a meadow hoping to find some monarch caterpillars so she could witness the same wonder. I swear, now it's almost impossible to find those! I've turned over many leafs without finding a single one. Finally I went ordered a caterpillar online from some science shop.

Occassionally, I'll see a monarch butterfly here or there, but I remember back in the 70s, it was almost impossible to step outside without immediately seeing one.

Has any one else noticed this change?