Incredible Journey & Climate Discord
Natalie Willmschen | December 2017
I have such clear memories of my times in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences growing up. My pre-school, located directly across the street in the heart of downtown Raleigh, took a trip there every second Wednesday of the month. The exhausting day of animal interactions and viewing exhibits typically ended in the café on the fourth floor with one of my favorite childhood snacks—an ice cream sandwich. The unique aspect of this café was that it sat beside the Living Conservatory, or more popularly known as the butterfly room.
Experiences like this are what inspired me to find a passion for nature. As I grew and my passion for nature turned into a potential career path, I found myself volunteering and then interning in that very Living Conservatory as a college student. My time in the Living Conservatory was spent doing various things, including learning about species of butterflies that came from Central America and educating visitors about them, purely to evoke a reason to care about these insects. I grew a special appreciation for the Monarch Butterfly and the story of how we came to understand its phenomenal migration patterns.
It all started with a child—much like young me—inspired by nature, a young Fred Urquhart from Toronto who was curious as to where the beautiful Monarch butterflies went in the winter time. He grew up at a school next to a cattail marsh where he would spend hours exploring. His school library helped to fuel his love of learning about living things, including through the famous text On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. At only the age of 16, Fred found himself writing to lead authorities on migration inquiring as to whether the Monarch was considered a migrant. This small curiosity as a child grew into a life quest for Fred, who thought of the idea of sticking tags on butterflies to track where they went. However, at this point in history, in the 1940s, no one had ever attempted tagging insects before. Fred would find himself running through the fields of Toronto attempting to imitate a butterfly to test different glues that may be effective. As inventive as this may have been, the solution was instead found in the new stickers being used on produce in stores.
This small idea developed into something much bigger with the formation of the Insect Migration Association by Fred and his new-found, fellow butterfly lover wife, Nora. They asked for volunteers, or “citizen scientists” to help to tag Monarch butterflies and also report butterflies spotted with a tag. After nearly two decades of unanswered questions about where the Monarchs were going, Fred and Nora received a letter from Ken Brugger who was visiting his girlfriend, Catalina, in Mexico who had seen an article published by Fred in the local newspaper. Catalina had remembered that during the Day of the Dead celebration, Monarchs were seen flying through the cemetery and that folklore embraced the butterflies as the returning souls of children. These childhood memories of Catalina pointed to where the Monarchs could be found in the winter—in the mountains of Mexico.
Fred, having spent a lifetime in search of these butterflies, made his way down to Mexico to see the phenomenal overwintering of the Monarchs, clustered throughout the trees for warmth. Here is where he saw a Monarch lying on the ground with tag number 397, originally tagged in Minnesota. That butterfly would have had to have flown 2,000 miles for at least 2 months to end up there. Monarch butterflies, while they use three generations to fly north, have a super generation that flies all the way back to Mexico throughout the fall season, just one generation that lives eight times longer than the generation before them. Fred describes this moment of indefinite proof as a moment in which time stood still, where a lifetime of work by him, his wife, and thousands of citizen scientists, paid off. The Monarch butterfly exhibits the most highly evolved migration pattern of any known species of butterfly or moth and perhaps any known insect, and it was discovered by a child with a simple curiosity.
Since these phenomenal discoveries, the areas that the Monarch butterflies call their home over the winter have been protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site. But Monarch populations are not fully protected because many habitat areas within their migratory pathway are being altered. The World Wildlife Fund’s 2013 report from Mexico showed that the number of Monarch butterflies wintering there was at its lowest in 20 years. Numbers are low for several reasons, including habitat loss. Monarchs require milkweed to lay their eggs because this is the only plant that their caterpillars eat. To most animals, milkweed is poisonous and many ranchers want it off their land so that their animals don’t accidently ingest it. With increased use of land for farming, the abundance of milkweed is beginning to dwindle.
An even more pressing reason why the number of Monarchs in Mexico over the winter is smaller is because of that thing we seem to find as the cause of a lot of environmental catastrophes nowadays—climate change. Tens of thousands of Monarch butterflies that should have been in Texas by mid-October, were still in the northern United States and Canada. With Monarchs typically reaching Mexico by November 1, this was very alarming. Warmer-than-normal temperatures were persistent throughout the fall, but the Monarch butterfly’s muscles can no longer function normally after temperatures drop below about 50 degrees. Climate discord--the out-of-synch, warm fall weather--could lead to tens of thousands of Monarchs being stuck up north, and dying.
The area where the Monarch butterflies overwinter may not be safe from the effects of climate change either. Between 9,500 and 10,800 feet above sea level, the Monarchs huddle together in the dark-green oyamel fir trees or “sacred firs.” These sacred firs are suffering from hotter and drier temperatures throughout the year. While work is being done in the United States to encourage planting milkweed, scientists in Mexico are working to move the sacred firs farther up the mountain in elevation to save them, because there’s the possibility that by the end of the century, the habitat that supports these trees will no longer exist within the reserve.
The future of Monarch butterflies, and the awe and wonder that they inspire in people of all ages, depends not just on habitat protection throughout their migratory pathway, but on global cooperation to limit further climate change.
Natalie Willmschen | December 2017
I have such clear memories of my times in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences growing up. My pre-school, located directly across the street in the heart of downtown Raleigh, took a trip there every second Wednesday of the month. The exhausting day of animal interactions and viewing exhibits typically ended in the café on the fourth floor with one of my favorite childhood snacks—an ice cream sandwich. The unique aspect of this café was that it sat beside the Living Conservatory, or more popularly known as the butterfly room.
Experiences like this are what inspired me to find a passion for nature. As I grew and my passion for nature turned into a potential career path, I found myself volunteering and then interning in that very Living Conservatory as a college student. My time in the Living Conservatory was spent doing various things, including learning about species of butterflies that came from Central America and educating visitors about them, purely to evoke a reason to care about these insects. I grew a special appreciation for the Monarch Butterfly and the story of how we came to understand its phenomenal migration patterns.
It all started with a child—much like young me—inspired by nature, a young Fred Urquhart from Toronto who was curious as to where the beautiful Monarch butterflies went in the winter time. He grew up at a school next to a cattail marsh where he would spend hours exploring. His school library helped to fuel his love of learning about living things, including through the famous text On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin. At only the age of 16, Fred found himself writing to lead authorities on migration inquiring as to whether the Monarch was considered a migrant. This small curiosity as a child grew into a life quest for Fred, who thought of the idea of sticking tags on butterflies to track where they went. However, at this point in history, in the 1940s, no one had ever attempted tagging insects before. Fred would find himself running through the fields of Toronto attempting to imitate a butterfly to test different glues that may be effective. As inventive as this may have been, the solution was instead found in the new stickers being used on produce in stores.
This small idea developed into something much bigger with the formation of the Insect Migration Association by Fred and his new-found, fellow butterfly lover wife, Nora. They asked for volunteers, or “citizen scientists” to help to tag Monarch butterflies and also report butterflies spotted with a tag. After nearly two decades of unanswered questions about where the Monarchs were going, Fred and Nora received a letter from Ken Brugger who was visiting his girlfriend, Catalina, in Mexico who had seen an article published by Fred in the local newspaper. Catalina had remembered that during the Day of the Dead celebration, Monarchs were seen flying through the cemetery and that folklore embraced the butterflies as the returning souls of children. These childhood memories of Catalina pointed to where the Monarchs could be found in the winter—in the mountains of Mexico.
Fred, having spent a lifetime in search of these butterflies, made his way down to Mexico to see the phenomenal overwintering of the Monarchs, clustered throughout the trees for warmth. Here is where he saw a Monarch lying on the ground with tag number 397, originally tagged in Minnesota. That butterfly would have had to have flown 2,000 miles for at least 2 months to end up there. Monarch butterflies, while they use three generations to fly north, have a super generation that flies all the way back to Mexico throughout the fall season, just one generation that lives eight times longer than the generation before them. Fred describes this moment of indefinite proof as a moment in which time stood still, where a lifetime of work by him, his wife, and thousands of citizen scientists, paid off. The Monarch butterfly exhibits the most highly evolved migration pattern of any known species of butterfly or moth and perhaps any known insect, and it was discovered by a child with a simple curiosity.
Since these phenomenal discoveries, the areas that the Monarch butterflies call their home over the winter have been protected as a UNESCO World Heritage site. But Monarch populations are not fully protected because many habitat areas within their migratory pathway are being altered. The World Wildlife Fund’s 2013 report from Mexico showed that the number of Monarch butterflies wintering there was at its lowest in 20 years. Numbers are low for several reasons, including habitat loss. Monarchs require milkweed to lay their eggs because this is the only plant that their caterpillars eat. To most animals, milkweed is poisonous and many ranchers want it off their land so that their animals don’t accidently ingest it. With increased use of land for farming, the abundance of milkweed is beginning to dwindle.
An even more pressing reason why the number of Monarchs in Mexico over the winter is smaller is because of that thing we seem to find as the cause of a lot of environmental catastrophes nowadays—climate change. Tens of thousands of Monarch butterflies that should have been in Texas by mid-October, were still in the northern United States and Canada. With Monarchs typically reaching Mexico by November 1, this was very alarming. Warmer-than-normal temperatures were persistent throughout the fall, but the Monarch butterfly’s muscles can no longer function normally after temperatures drop below about 50 degrees. Climate discord--the out-of-synch, warm fall weather--could lead to tens of thousands of Monarchs being stuck up north, and dying.
The area where the Monarch butterflies overwinter may not be safe from the effects of climate change either. Between 9,500 and 10,800 feet above sea level, the Monarchs huddle together in the dark-green oyamel fir trees or “sacred firs.” These sacred firs are suffering from hotter and drier temperatures throughout the year. While work is being done in the United States to encourage planting milkweed, scientists in Mexico are working to move the sacred firs farther up the mountain in elevation to save them, because there’s the possibility that by the end of the century, the habitat that supports these trees will no longer exist within the reserve.
The future of Monarch butterflies, and the awe and wonder that they inspire in people of all ages, depends not just on habitat protection throughout their migratory pathway, but on global cooperation to limit further climate change.