To catch a monarch

In case you are not up on monarch butterfly habits, right now, from all over Canada and the U.S., monarchs are making a perilous journey down to Mexico, where they will spend the winter wearing little sombreros and sipping margaritas.

Of course the butterflies need pit stops during their long trip, and one of these stops is Cape May, New Jersey, where they hang out to fill themselves up with nectar. Nectar is a major factor in their decision to fly on their own rather than by commercial airliner, as airlines are notorious for either a) not serving nectar or b) serving something that is called nectar, but that looks suspiciously like smashed, roasted peanuts.

Cape May is also a favorite rest stop because of the local surfing sites, which are particularly attractive to the teenage male monarchs. But monarchs cannot let themselves get too distracted by such indulgences, because in order to conserve the energy they will need to get across the wide expanse of country, each monarch must vow to temporarily abstain from such typical butterfly behaviors as mating. Some have put forth a petition to abstain from other behaviors instead, such as breathing, but this has been voted down by the Council of Elder Monarchs. 

The annual monarch butterfly trek has long interested humans, who would like to know how in the world monarchs can fly thousands of miles, over inhospitable terrain such as Interstate 95 and Texas, without GPS. Male humans, especially, are hopeful that there is some gene responsible for the butterflies' amazing directional abilities, and that this gene could perhaps be inserted into their own DNA.

But in reality, there is no gene. The Council of Elder Monarchs puts out a large directional manual each season, with instructions on such things as preferred route, how to avoid getting lost, how to ask for directions in case one does get lost (for females: "Que manera a Mexico?" for males: Just pick a likely direction), how to impress females with one's flying ability, etc.

Many people are so interested in the monarch migration that they track the butterflies' progress as they make their way south. They do this by gathering in places such as Cape May, catching as many monarchs as possible, tagging them with a little sticker (which reads If you find this, please call 888-924-0001), and then releasing them. Then more curious humans at the other end search the kajillions of butterflies that have arrived for those that have tags on them, which is estimated to be about 3.


Through no fault of my own, I was part of one of these tagging groups last weekend, along with dozens of little persons under the age of 8. Armed with only a flimsy net, we battled the butterflies, who curiously were not interested in being caught and tagged, though we tried our best to make the tagging part attractive to them ("Think of it as a tattoo").


With my superior adult brain and quickness of movements, I soon outstripped the kids in trapping everything but monarchs, while they gleefully caught one monarch after another. The end count was something like me: 1, kids: 872,000.


After a while I gave up. Other adults would see me empty-handed and ask if I wanted a net. "Oh, that's okay," I would say generously. "Let the kids have it."

I wasn't the only adult pretending to be generous to the kids. "Oh, look, here's a monarch," I would hear another adult say who had been laboriously trying to catch a particularly elusive one, and some kid would nab it in a flash.

I commiserated with a five-year-old, who sulked at also not catching anything. While she was busy sulking, her sympathetic seven-year-old brother snuck a butterfly into her net, then pronounced excitedly that she had indeed caught something. The five-year-old gave him a disdainful look.

"You put it there," she said. "I saw you."

When I got home, Joe put it all in perspective for me. "Why would you want to catch them anyway? They're still bugs."


Bugs that will, in a few weeks, be wearing little sombreros and sipping margaritas. And trying to pull those darn stickers off.