Attendees tag butterflies, learn about insect conservation at Nahant Marsh's annual Monarch Party

Hundreds of people were at Nahant Marsh for its 11th annual Monarch Party Saturday afternoon.

Director of Education Amy Loving said the event offers monarch tagging to help scientists understand more about monarch migration, population and, newly added this year, wing length.

"Monarchs are tagged this season because this generation is actually heading back to Mexico over winter," Loving said.

Loving said Monarchs are the "mascot" for insect conservation.

"Insects have been in decline for a very long time, and so our goal here today is really just to get people excited about insects through the monarch," Loving said. "Biodiversity is extremely important, and we wanna make sure that we're encouraging folks to plant native plants, create natural habitats and that's just gonna increase our insects, our birds and beyond."

During the event, family activities were available along with education stations and even the opportunity to catch many kinds of insects.

"These kids are catching all kinds of great stuff. There's dragonflies in there; there's damsel flies, all kinds of grasshoppers, so they're having a lot of fun," Loving said.

After the event, any insects that were caught throughout the day were released.