Answers from the Students in Mexico Spring 2014
Greeting | School | Home | Monarch

We interviewed the children about monarch conservation.

Does your class go on field trips up in the mountains to see monarchs flying and roosting in the Oyamel trees?
Vanesa: I am now about to end Secondary school and I have taken a school expedition to the monarchs only three times during all these school years.
Leonardo: Only one time last year with our teacher.
Laura Emilia: When I was in elementary school, a private school in town, we were taken to the Monarch Mountains every single year by our science teacher.  Now that I am in my third year of  secondary school, my science teacher has never organized a trip up there.  I have been there many times with my mother.
Esmeralda: Our family visits the monarchs once in a while when relatives come from the city.  At school, I am in my 5th grade. I've done it twice with two of my teachers at different grades.
Vianney: No, I've never been taken by my teachers. I would love it if we did. I've been at the sanctuaries once with my family.

What is your favorite fact about monarchs?
Marco: They have made our town very, very famous.
Marta: That it means there is something special in our region that make us unique in the world.
Raúl: The fact that we should take care of trees, which are the main home for monarchs.
Minerva: They are incredibly strong as to travel from so far  away to protect themselves from snow and cold in the North.

How many butterflies do you see a day?
Estela: None of them could respond. They only said "many."

What is it like to see so many butterflies in the forest?
Claudia: It is normal for us to see so many butterflies.  Don’t children in the United States and Canada see as many as we do?  Do monarchs form sanctuaries as they do here with us?
Janette: We feel very important and we were born with this; it is normal for us, but does that mean children in the North do not see as many butterflies as we see here?

Did your family notice that Monarchs were late this year?
Esmeralda: Yes, we did notice, but my parents and other adults in my community thought it could be normal, due to so many changes in the weather, as they say on T.V.
Leonardo: We noticed it when people started to speak about monarchs not seen during the Day of the Dead celebrations.

How do you feel knowing that the population of Monarchs is declining?
Luz Arelia: If Monarchs disappear, Angangueo will never be the same again. They bring so much life and jobs to our region.
Marta: I have heard of the dangers with climate, deforestation, and other problems for monarchs and feel worried.
Vanessa: I worry that they will someday leave us, since there were so many years ago and now there are so little. We need to plant many more Oyamel trees.
Janette: On T.V. they say México is faulty for cutting the Oyameles and in the North they do not have enough milkweed to eat and to lay their eggs because they are also cutting the Algodoncillo. My parents watched several T.V. programs about that during the last months and spoke about it.
Leonardo: Estela told us during her visits with the letters and symbolic Monarchs that it is the responsibility of the three countries where Monarchs live, and our three Presidents were on T.V. and promised they will do something to save them.
Esmeralda: What can we children do to help? I do hear that here in our country every time it is more and more illegal to cut a tree, so that means we are doing something but the problem. It is perhaps too big and what is being done is too little.

Would you ever do a class project and write to the president of México to ask that deforestation be stopped?
Valeria: I would do this, asking on one side, the President of México to stop deforestation for guaranteeing Oyamel  forests in the future as overwintering home for Monarchs, and I would write the North American President Obama to ask to stop Milkweed areas from being devastated in that country.  My father recorded a couple of T.V. programs with important expert people speaking about that.
Estela: Valeria is now starting her career at University and is very well informed about all that happens. Her father’s life as a painter is deeply linked to the tourism flow in town and they hear a lot.  On the other side, it is true that in our main official T.V. channels (at least in three of them) there were lots of alarming news about Monarchs diminishing their population this year.  The rest of children immediately reacted positively to the question confessing they would ask their teachers or parents how such a petition could be placed.  Others kept very thoughtful, as if feeling it was something they would have never thought about (writing to the Mexican President).

Have you seen or found a Monarch with a tag?
Estela: No child from the ones interviewed for this questionnaire have.  However, children living near El Rosario have indeed.

Does the town have a Monarch Festival for the tourists?
Valeria, Diego, and Vanessa: Lots of preparation and participation from the State and the local authorities and the people in town volunteering are organized to manage this Festival which has been organized for around 20 years now!

Does Monarch migration help your economy?
Antonio, Claudia and Diego:  Yes, many parents of our friends work at hotels, restaurants, or make and sell souvenirs with Monarchs at the Sanctuaries.

Do students and people living in the area of the Monarchs’ winter home value the butterflies because of the natural phenomenon they are or more because of the economic benefits of tourists?
Valeria: Angangueo has always had very little employment sources, so of course Monarchs are a very important economic flow for our town, but we also value them because of their importance as part of Nature.
Laura Emilia: I was once in a country in Central Europe and learned that we are not as closely connected to nature here.  That makes me feel very frustrated.
Leonardo: If our teachers and parents would take us more outside into nature we would be so excited and learn so much!

Which plant or tree attract the Monarch butterflies?
Almost all, except the youngest ones, responded:
El Oyamel!

Is the monarchs' overwintering location safe?
Valeria: Not at all if the three countries hosting Monarchs do not do something to guarantee their habitat.
Pepe: Not if we continue cutting trees.
Janette: We should keep the hope that there are many people interested and working to do something for them, as they are doing for other species in the planet.

We feel happy that our land is the winter home for monarchs

All children of the local Artistic Painter Enríque Téllez, are actively involved in painting for the Monarchs' Festival in town.

The children appear to be as talented as their father, and are already active in the different tasks assigned to them during Monarch's Festival.

Daughters Vanessa and Valeria in Enríque Téllez's workshop.

The Parents, Diego, Vanessa and Valeria, the children in the family.