Alva Review-Courier -

SPEARFISH, S.D. (AP) — In late September the news of planned construction on the Kathryn Johnson Life Sciences Laboratory at Black Hills State University sent one student scrambling to rescue the chrysalises of monarch butterflies.

Butterfly enthusiast Kara Whalen, 28, of Spearfish, who is studying nursing at BHSU saw what she believed was a monarch caterpillar while walking on the sidewalk near the building in mid-September.

After class she returned to the bushes and started searching the milkweed – the only plant monarchs will eat.

"They were absolutely loaded," Whalen previously told the Bl...