A monarch s journey of a lifetime Tuesday, April 27, 2021 3:47 PM Roughly one percent of all monarchs tagged will be recovered in Mexico. This photo, featured on the back cover of my book, THE MONARCH: Saving Our Most-Loved Butterfly, shows the very first monarch I ever tagged.
In late July, early August, I walk through my gardens with a mission.
I make a beeline for the eight different species of milkweed growing
there. At each plant, I inspect every leaf for tiny pearlescent eggs,
laid one at a time, usually one per leaf, and often just one per plant.
At
that time of year, these monarch butterfly eggs will hatch out a very
In Mexico’s vibrant forests, locals adapt to a year without tourists
Ecotourism and conservation efforts go hand-in-hand. What happens when the tourists disappear?
ByAnnelise Jolley
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When she was 10 years old, Ana Moreno watched buses full of tourists pull into her village. They had come to see the monarch butterflies, which arrive in flurries each November and stay the winter in the Sierra Madre’s forested peaks. Moreno watched the monarch enthusiasts pour from buses, chattering to each other. She thought to herself, “How is it possible that I don’t speak English?”
Moreno went on to study tourism and learn English at university. Her goal was to become a butterfly guide and lead tours into the forest. Moreno’s father had worked as a forest ranger, and on several occasions she accompanied him up the mountain to see the monarch colonies. “I wanted to be up there every single day,” she says.