I first published this post two years ago when I traveled to Mexico and the mountain sanctuary to which millions of Monarch butterflies migrate every winter. On Valentine's Day 2011 we were lucky to have optimum conditions for viewing the incredible beauty of the Monarch habitat, but this past week I've been reading that the population of Monarchs who arrived in Mexico this year is at an all-time low due to extreme weather, illegal logging in Mexico and especially destruction of breeding habitats (wild milkweed plants) in the U.S. So I'm re-posting this, to share one of the most memorable travel experiences of my life before the Monarchs completely disappear from their long-hidden winter retreat.
They
are one of the great mysteries—and beauties—of nature. No one knew
where the migrating Monarch butterflies spent the winter until 1975,
when the mountaintop in Michoacan, Mexico was discovered by an American
named Ken Brugger and his wife Catalina Aguada. The Bruggers had
answered an ad in a Mexican newspaper asking for volunteers, placed by Dr. Frederick Urquhart who had been trying to find the Monarchs’ wintering place since1937.
The discovery of the Monarchs’ winter hiding place, according to
another scientist, was “Like discovering the eighth wonder of the
world.”
For the native Purépecha Indians, the place of the Monarchs had never
been a secret. At the beginning of November every year, the church
bells rang, signaling the arrival of millions of butterflies (which had
flown all the way from the United State and Canada.) The Purépechas
believed that the mariposas were the souls of dead children, and the annual arrival frightened them, so they did not speak of it to outsiders.
One of Mexico’s most celebrated poets, Homer Aridjis, who was born in a
small village near the hibernation site, had known about the
butterflies all his life, since he first discovered them while exploring
near his home. Here is what Christine Potters, an American fellow
blogger, whom I met during my recent trip to Morelia, wrote about
Aridjis in her excellent blog “Mexico Cooks”
"In the town of Contepec, Michoacán, a small boy, Homero Aridjis,
born in 1940 as the youngest of five Greek/Mexican brothers--used to
climb Cerro Altamirano near his home to look at the monarch butterflies
that flooded the forests for almost four months in the winter before
they left again, heading north. No one living in his area knew where the
butterflies came from or where they went. "When I began to write
poems," Aridjis said, "I used to climb the hill that dominated the
memory of my childhood. Its slopes, gullies, and streams were full of
animal voices--owls, hummingbirds, mocking birds, coyotes, deer,
armadillo. The natural world stimulated my poetry." But of all of these
animals, he says the monarch butterflies were his "first love." Aridjis
won Mexico's very prestigious Xavier Villarrutia Award at age 24 and
years later, monarchs were still making their appearance in his writing.
His 1971 book, El poeta niño, includes a beautiful poem that goes like
this: "You travel/by day/ like a winged tiger/ burning yourself/ in your
flight/ Tell me/ what supernatural/ life is/painted on your
wings...."**"
Early on, after the discovery of the hibernation site, Aridjis became
an activist trying to protect the butterflies’ hibernation place and to
prevent the deforestation of the fir trees on which they depend for
their survival in the winter.
When I entered the butterfly sanctuary at El Rosaria, in the Mexican
state of Michoachan, on Valentine’s day, last week, as part of the first
tour to the area sponsored by Susana Trilling, a chef who is based in
Oaxaca, (www.Seasonsofmyheart.com)
the people of El Rosario were still digging out from a tragic storm,
exactly a year earlier, which caused mud slides and floods that buried
homes and people and washed away cars, homes and animals, leaving 30,000
homeless and at least 45 people dead. We could see the construction to
rebuild roads and bridges as we approached Rosario.
Nevertheless
the path up the mountain to the butterfly sanctuary was clean and paved
with cement and stairs, punctuated by frequent benches. Once inside the gates, our group was assigned a local guide, Guadalupe, (men named Guadalupe are
called “Jose”, we learned) but he scarcely said a word during our
climb—it seems his only function was to watch us to make sure we didn’t
harm the vegetation and the butterflies and didn’t get lost. We had brought our own guide from Morelia—Raymundo Solorio Vargas (email: rayturismo55@hotmail.com ) who gave us a moving account of the deadly storm a year before.
In
our itineraries for the trip, Susana had quoted an account of a storm
in 2002 that killed a majority of the wintering Monarchs. It turns out
that the butterflies, who don’t move, but cling to the fir trees when
the weather gets cold, can survive temperatures well below zero, if they
have little liquid in their bodies, but if they are wet, as they were
in 2002, they freeze. On the day after the storm, acording to Lincoln
Brower, an entomologist at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, “We were
wading in (dead) butterflies up to our knees.” He and his colleagues
estimated that 500 million monarchs had died from the storm—five times
more than they thought had even existed in the colony.
The
scientists feared that only a fraction of the usual number of
butterflies would return the next year, but to their delight, they found
that the devastated Monarch population had returned to normal.
In
my visit last week to the butterfly sanctuary at El Rosario, I learned a
lot, including how to tell a male butterfly from a female. A male has the two dots that you see below on the back part of his wings. The dark veins on a female are wider.
.
The
butterflies that flock to Mexico from the U.S. and Canada to spend the
winter are the fourth generation, the “Methuselah Generation” of their
breed.
An
adult butterfly lives only about four to five weeks, The eggs are left
on the milkweed plant, three or four days later the brightly striped
caterpillars emerge, and during the next nine to 14 days they shed their
skin five times. On the sixth molting, the caterpillar transforms
into a chrysalis, and after eight to 13 days, the adult butterfly
emerges. (This is illustrated by a five minute film in Spanish for
visitors at a theater inside the Rosario sanctuary.)
Three
days after emerging, the adult butterflies develop sex organs and, five
days later begin to reproduce. This cycle occurs three times during
spring and summer as the butterflies travel north into the US and Canada
until, in the fall, the fourth or “Methuselah” generation is born.
This fourth generation will survive seven or eight months, will perform
the astounding feat of traveling from Canada and the United States to
Mexico, and after mating, the females will return back north again to
the United States. (The male Monarchs in Mexico after enjoying the
72-hour mating season in February, during which they will mate with
numerous females, will then drop dead—their work is done. Only the
females fly back north to lay their eggs.)
photo of butterflies mating
On
the day we walked up the mountain to the most butterfly-crowded
sections of the forest, what our guide Raymundo called “The Nucleus”, it
was a warm day and the beginning of the mating season, and the air
around us was alive with butterflies, while millions more hung on the
trees like orange autumn leaves. We
were very lucky, because in the early part of the winter—November and
December-- the butterflie tend not to fly, but just to hang still on the
trees, and on cold days they’ll do the same.
Our
guide told us that only one day in ten will provide the optimum
conditions that we saw on Valentine’s Day. As we started up the steps
toward the apex of the walk it became clear this was a harder trek than I
expected. (We
walked 2008 meters up and 2008 meters back for a total of 6 kilometers,
our guide told us—And when we started at Rosario we were already 1850
meters above sea level.)
It
looked easy at the start, but only about 100 feet up I was gasping for
breath I quickly realized that the altitude was a major factor in
whether or not I was going to make it all the way. As it turned out,
half of our group of six—most in their thirties or early forties—had
little trouble making the ascent but the other three of us—with me at 70
being the oldest—had to stop at nearly every bench to catch our breath,
while marveling at the scenery around us. (For those not able to make
the ascent, horses can be rented, but the last 300 feet up still has to
be on foot.)
The
butterflies were a constant commotion all around us. As one book said,
the miracle is that they never collide. In spots where there was
water, like a small stream over the road, they clustered.
The
view of the sky, of the laden fir trees, the beauty all around us was
indescribable. When I sat down to catch my breath, the silence was
complete-- almost eerie. But then, as I sat there and my heart stopped
raced and my breath returned to normal, I could hearing, ever so
faintly, the rustle of thousands—millions—of butterfly wings.
It
was a transcendent experience, even for those who have no religion. No
wonder the Purépecha Indians thought the butterflies were the souls of
their dead children.
We
all took photos and then we realized, as one of the women in our group
remarked—there is no way a still photo could give any idea of the
indescribable experience we had. So I tried for the first time to take
some videos with my camera, and I’m attaching below a link to one of
those videos. It lasts 55 seconds and if you watch it to the end, you
will see some of the members of our group.
This trip to Michoacan, Mexico was a gift from my husband for my 70th
birthday—and I can’t think of a better way to mark a milestone in
life. It was something I’ve always wanted to do before I die, and I
wish you an equality miraculous and moving experience, to mark a
landmark birthday.
