For Immediate Release

 As the Monarchs Head for Mexico,
New Yorkers Tag Them and Say, “Buen Viaje.”

Monarch Butterfly Tagging in Central Park on September 22

September 18, 2000--It used to be that the whole town would gather at the piers to see the ocean liners leave for Europe. Air travel may have dulled the cosmopolitan taste for big send-offs, but New Yorkers will still turn out for a special friend. Which is why some of the city’s nature lovers and friends are gathering in Central Park at Belvedere Castle and the Shakespeare Garden on September 22nd for a special program of netting and tagging migrating monarch butterflies as they make their marathon trip south toward Mexico.

 New York City’s Urban Park Rangers, naturalists and educators who conduct programs in the park, and Mastervision, who is sponsoring this effort, have invited city officials, conservation leaders and environmentally-concerned citizens to the program. Scheduled to attend are the Ambassador Jorge Pinto Mazal, Consul General of Mexico in New York, Executive Director of the Mexican Cultural Institute, Jorge Capetillo, New York City Parks and Recreation Commissioner, Henry J. Stern, World Wildlife Fund Monarch Butterfly Coordinator, Mexico, Monica Missrie, and representatives of Audubon Society, Sierra Club and other environmental groups.

 Also scheduled to appear is the Mariachi “Real de Mexico” and the Children’s Ballet “Estampas y Tradiciones,” and schoolchildren from throughout New York City.

 Program:

1:30 PM  Processional: Cultural Program with Real de Mexico and Estampas y Tradiciones.

2:00 PM  Speakers program with Commissioner Henry Stern introducing the guests.

2:20 PM Monarch Life Cycle and Tagging Program by Urban Park Rangers. Photo ops with Ambassador Pinto, Commissioner Stern, dancing children and music.

3:00 PM Netting and tagging in the Shakespeare Garden

              (tagging continues through the whole program)

 Each year, as the summer turns to fall, monarch butterflies make their way south, following the warmer weather. Some of these hearty little insects fly as many as 3,000 miles to their winter headquarters in mountains outside of Mexico City. Once there the monarchs huddle together by the millions and wait for spring, when they can once again head north for the summer.

Monarch Watch is a cooperative network of students, teachers, volunteers and researchers dedicated to the study of the biology of the monarch butterfly, Danaus plexippus. It is a project of the University of Kansas Department of Entomology and the University of Minnesota Department of Ecology.

One of the objectives of Monarch Watch is to document the migration through tagging and observations and to learn how monarchs navigate to reach the overwintering sites. By tagging the adult butterflies with uniquely coded tags, scientists can associate the location of capture (Central Park) with the point of recovery for each butterfly. The data from these recaptures are used to determine the pathways taken by migrating Monarchs, the influence of weather on the migration, the survival rate of the Monarchs and even the overall size of the migratory population.

Dr. Orley “Chip” Taylor, director of Monarch Watch, says: “We have participants tagging monarchs from the Rockies to the east coast, but have so far collected very little information on the behavior and destinations of monarchs that move through New York and the surrounding area. New Yorkers who participate in Monarch Watch 2000 in Central Park are making a valuable contribution to our knowledge of migratory behavior of northeastern monarchs.”

Monarch Watch 2000 in Central Park started in April, when Mastervision, a local video production and distribution company, worked with the Urban Park Rangers, Central Park gardeners, Project X and Americorps workers to plant hundreds of milkweed plants in the park’s wildflower meadow. These plants are the monarch’s larval food plant and essential for any program about the butterfly.

Meanwhile, a captive breeding program was begun to harvest the butterfly’s eggs, lowering mortality rates from 95% to 5%. Mastervision set up aquarium tanks at the Dana Discovery Center and Belvedere Castle in Central Park and populated them with larvae that soon became pupa. Visiting children have been delighting in the newly emerged butterflies, while Urban Park Rangers have been conducting programs for schoolchildren about the butterfly’s life cycle and the Monarch Watch tagging program.

“We’d like it if children in New York City didn’t have to get on the bus or train to see butterflies in the countryside. We’d like them to be able to have that experience in the city’s parks,” says Paul Opler, Ph.D., entomologist, lepidopterist and author of the Peterson Field Guides to North American Butterflies, East and West, who has been an advisor on the project.

We thank the Mexican Consulate and the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York for their generous support. Also, we are grateful for the participation of the Mariachi “Real de Mexico” (under the direction of Maestro Ramón Ponce) and the Children Ballet “Estampas y Tradiciones” (under the direction of Francisco Navárez).

Monarch Watch 2000 in Central Park is a partnership of City of New York Parks and Recreation, Henry J. Stern, Commissioner, Urban Park Rangers, Alexander Brash, Chief, Mastervision, 969 Park Ave., NY NY, 10028, Richard Stadin, President, and Monarch Watch, Dr. Orley Taylor, Director, www.monarchwatch.org.

Mastervision is currently in production on a television pilot called, “Have You Seen the Lotis Blue?” a survey of all the U.S. federally listed endangered and threatened butterflies, with rare video footage of all of them except one. The company is a producer and distributor of educational and cultural videocassettes, including Audubon Society’s Butterflies for Beginners and Audubon Society’s Butterfly Gardening.

Belvedere Castle and the Shakespeare Garden are located off the 79^th Street Transverse in the center of the Central Park. The phone number there is 212-772-0210.

Dr. Chip Taylor, director of Monarch Watch and professor of entomology at the University of Kansas, and Paul Opler, Professor and Senior Research Scientist, Colorado State University, Emeritus Scientist, U.S.G.S., B.R.D., NPWRC, MESC, are available for interviews.

 Beautiful art and photos available to the press. Contact Peter Kreutzer 631-323-2549.

 Contact: Richard Stadin, Mastervision, 212-879-0448