Pilot to accompany butterflies along route / LJWorld.com

Archive for Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Monarch migration

August 10, 2005

When the monarch butterflies later this month begin their 2,500-mile flight from Canada through Kansas to central Mexico, someone will be tagging along.

Francisco "Vico" Gutierrez plans to join the distinctively colored butterflies in a scooter-like, ultra-light airplane to track their annual migration.

"For the size of this incredible insect, it's amazing what they do to arrive in Mexico," Gutierrez said. "It's going to be an adventure."

Gutierrez plans to take off from Montreal, Canada, on Aug. 21 and arrive near Valle Del Bravo, Mexico, in early November. Along the way, he'll be filming a documentary about the migration and stopping in various places to raise awareness about habitat conservation for butterflies - including a stop Sept. 25-27 in Lawrence.

Dario Lopez-Mills/AP Photo

Francisco "Vico" Gutierrez sits at the front of his "Papalotzin" ultra-light plane with an unidentified assistant during a presentation to the press in Mexico City. Gutierrez and a crew including other pilots from Canada, the United States and Mexico plan to leave Quebec on Aug. 21 to follow thousands of Monarch butterflies during every part of their winter migration from the forests of eastern Canada to the central Mexican mountains.

Gutierrez, who lives near monarch sanctuaries in Mexico's Michoacan state, has been flying hang-gliders more than 30 years. He's been involved in previous documentaries and in hang-gliding competitions.

"Every time I'd pass by the sanctuary, I'd see so (much) illegal logging, and every year comes less and less monarchs," he said in a phone interview Tuesday. "So I decided to do this flight to promote conservation."

The butterflies make their journey straight south, more or less, from Canada to Mexico.

Gutierrez and a small crew are taking a more complicated route, to accommodate interviews with butterfly experts and to hit major population centers for publicity. He'll be flying at 3,000 to 4,000 feet in a 400-pound, 34-by-8-foot plane that somewhat resembles a butterfly, with orange, black and white wings.

Stops are planned in Toronto; Niagara Falls, N.Y.; New York City; Washington, D.C.; Lawrence; Oklahoma City; Austin, Texas; and Eagle Pass on the Texas-Mexico border.

Dario Lopez-Mills/AP Photo

Mexican pilot Francisco "Vico" Gutierrez, second from left, stands with assistants and sponsors around his "Papalotzin" ultra-light plane during a presentation to the press at a park last week in Mexico City, Mexico. Gutierrez and a crew including other pilots from Canada, the United States and Mexico, plan to leave Quebec on Aug. 21 to follow thousands of Monarch butterflies during every part of their winter migration from the forests of eastern Canada to the central Mexican mountains.

In Lawrence, Gutierrez plans to interview Chip Taylor, a Kansas University professor who directs the Monarch Watch program, an international effort that tags and researches butterflies and promotes conservation.

"It's an interesting project," Taylor said. "They're attracting a lot of attention. Hopefully it'll do some good and raise some awareness and maybe even some money for this."

Deforestation is threatening monarchs in Mexico, Taylor said, as is a lack of habitat in Canada and the United States. Monarch Watch recently set a goal of creating 10,000 "way stations" in the United States and Canada, where milkweed will be planted to sustain populations during migration.

Gutierrez's project is dubbed Papalotzin, a word from the ancient Nahuatl language spoken by the Aztecs that roughly translates to small butterfly. It's being sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund of Mexico, the government of Michoacan state and Gutierrez himself.

"My main aim is to let the people know about this incredible phenomenon," he said. "We have to get attention from the government of Mexico, and put pressure for it to take care of the forest and try to watch for logging."