Greetings from Sierra Chincua Sanctuary, Mexico
A Letter From Estela Romero
Dear Friends,
Before year 2019 ends, I had to write these few lines. After the arrival of the Monarchs on the Day of the Dead festival, the Monarchs needed a few weeks to recognize and decide the spots of Oyamel trees where their great, great, grand parents settled last year. The Monarchs arrived by the millions and seemed to confirm a population increase much to the delight of the world.
Well, right now, the colony at the Sierra Chincua Sanctuary, traditionally the second largest, seems to be surpassing the numbers of monarchs in the colonies in El Rosario and Cerro Pelón! Whether it will be similar or even a little higher in numbers as many locals dare suggest, we can calculate, from the side of the colony where visitors are allowed to approach, that the area occupies, at this point in time, an average of 120 Oyamel trees covered nearly from bottom to top!
However, the three Sanctuaries, Sierra Chincua, El Rosario and Cerro Pelón will register changes within the coming weeks. We could have surprises still to be seen by January! Keep in mind that Monarchs are unpredictable!
There are many potential reasons that the colonies at El Rosario and Cerro Pelón maybe slightly less, but still impressively high, than the Sierra Chincua Sanctuary. Perhaps is is the slightly chillier weather or other scientific reasons we can not guess.
At the entrance, a solemn memorial has been erected in honor of Dr. Lincoln Brower who discovered this colony back in the late 1970’s. Dr. Brower passed away last August 2018 yet the wonder of the monarch sanctuaries remain sources of enjoyment for local and foreign visitors alike who are stunned by this monarch phenomenon at ten thousand feel altitude in our mountains.
Ambrosio, a middle school student and grand-child to a local family guarding the Sanctuary, had these wise words to share:
“Grandpa tells us, as he trains us to become guides in the Sanctuary, that these mountains are our treasure and our future; we were born here and we want to live and die here, and when we pass away, as Dr. Lincoln did, we know we will be a soul coming in the form of a Monarch butterfly overrwintering here, just as he is here now, among the millions flying all around us”.
This is how, dear friends, the season is only just starting, promising to be an exceptional winter, reaching for sure, numbers that will be kept as reference for future studies and research for the scientific community.
Be it so.
Estela Romero, Angangueo, Michoacán, México
