I raise delicate butterflies on the mean streets of New York Robyn Elman works to protect and conserve monarch butterflies before their dangerous migration down the US East Coast to Mexico. By Jack Leeming

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01722-0?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=a660278c77-nature-briefing-daily-20240610&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b27a691814-a660278c77-50432164 Entrepreneur and community scientist Robyn Elman has raised thousands of monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus) from eggs that would otherwise be destroyed by lawnmowers cutting down roadside weeds. “From July through to September, that still takes me around six hours a day, seven days a week,” she explains. Elman tags some of the butterflies with stickers to monitor them on their migration to Mexico. She’s also working with New York’s Department of Transportation, which is responsible for roadside mowing, to better protect the animals’ habitats.