This
will be neat to see. It is one of the great migrations in the world
and perhaps one of the most unlikeliest. I grew up with them and
even collected pupae to watch them emerge.
A
real surprise is that a tagged butterfly from Wisconsin made it all
the way down to Mexico in one generation. These are amazingly,
generational migrations.
Fears
about this butterflies future are likely misplaced now that the
winter refugia is well known and the insects have zero economic
value.
However
poaching suggests that landholder are uncompensated and need to be
bought out. Do that and establish a conservatory and the problems
will go away.
At
the same time, the milk weed needs to be cultivated for its natural
product stream anyway.
Beautiful New Film
Follows The 40-Year Search For The Monarch Butterfly's Winter Home
Randy Astaiza
Jan. 1, 2013, 1:23 PM
http://www.businessinsider.com/flight-of-the-butterflies-movie-2012-12
Flight
of the Butterflies,
opening in New York at The American Museum of Natural History on Jan.
5 lets you take a journey with monarch butterflies during their
annual migration. Theirs is the longest insect migration, which spans
thousands of miles and several generations and took 40 years to
uncover.
Director
Mike Slee co-wrote the script with co-executive producer Wendy
MacKeigen to reenact the discovery of a lifetime. They received help
from the world's top monarch butterfly experts and major funding
from the National Science Foundation.
"...This
new film allows the audience to experience the natural world of
butterflies as never before — in metamorphosis inside a chrysalis,
in flight a mile high, migrating over great distances, and in
tree-laden monarch sanctuaries," said executive producer
Jonathan Barker, the CEO of SK
Films in
a press release. "In 'Flight of the Butterflies,' we are able to
utilize the spectacular giant screen technology to follow an even
more fascinating creature — the fragile yet tenacious monarch —
and bring to life the compelling detective story and heroic efforts
by an intrepid scientist and real individuals to solve a scientific
mystery."
An
IMAX experience
I
was invited to see the movie on Tuesday, December 11, 2012 in IMAX 3D
in New York. You have to see this movie to believe it: The film was
absolutely stunning and the 3D on the IMAX screen made me feel I was
there surrounded by butterflies, flying a mile high on the way from
Canada to Mexico. There was such an incredible number of butterflies
in some scenes that it was hard to believe none of the butterflies
are computer generated.
The
only computer graphics in the movie was the amazing animation looking
into the chrysalis, the hard outer protective layer in which
the caterpillar transforms into a butterfly (colloquially known
as a cocoon, though those are technically only for species of moths).
Researchers used special scans to see how the caterpillar changes,
including growing wings, long legs, and its organs changing in order
to become a butterfly, then computer animated this portion of the
film.
The
butterfly sanctuary in Mexico where the monarch butterflies spend
their winter is a truly unbelievable sight. So many monarchs cover
the trees, that they appear to be part of them.
The
Story
This
docudrama follows the 40 years that Fred Urqhart and his wife Norah
Urqhart spent searching for the winter home of the Monarch butterfly.
With
the help of thousands of volunteers they tagged butterflies from
Canada, America, and Mexico. It was two volunteers in Mexico,
Ken Brugger and Catalina Aquado, who discovered the monarch's winter
home in 1976: A butterfly sanctuary in the 10,000-feet-high Sierra
Madre Mountains of Mexico.
Actress
Stephanie Sigman playing Catalina Aguado replicates the famous
picture on the cover of National Geographic.
When
Nora and Fred visited the sanctuary they find a monarch, PS397, which
was tagged by two school boys and their teacher in Minnesota, 2,000
miles away, four months before.
National
Geographic featured
the discovery of the Mexican sanctuary in their August 1976 issue
with a picture of Catalina Aquado surrounded by butterflies on and
around her on the front cover. In the movie actress Stephanie Sigman
recreates that scene.
Monarchs
now
Thanks
to the movie the butterfly sanctuary was declared a World Heritage
Site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural
Organization. But, the World Wildlife Fund reports that the butterfly
population in the sanctuary has dropped one third since 2011 due to
illegal logging, industrial farming, and climate change.
The
monarchs are now classified as near threatened. A significant amount
of the box office revenue will go towards protecting the butterfly
sanctuary.
Watch
the trailer and a "teaser" below for a glimpse of just how
spectacular the monarchs' migration and sanctuary are:
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