But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.
—“The Blue Butterfly Day,” by Robert Frost
The skies above Santa Cruz will soon be speckled in orange and black as the monarch butterfly begins migrating southward and westward for the winter. This Sunday, lepidopterists and fall color enthusiasts from across the county converged on Natural Bridges State Beach to see the monarch butterflies return to Santa Cruz in a blaze of orange and black. The park’s eucalyptus grove is the only monarch preserve in California, and Sunday marked the 24th annual Welcome Back Monarchs Day. But the butterflies didn’t show up. “They must still be on their way,” said park rangers, so families were forced to make due with butterfly butter cookies and having butterflies painted on their cheeks instead.
In fact, the monarch butterfly, once a sign of the season, is rapidly becoming a rarity across the United States. Every year, these remarkable insects migrate hundreds of miles from across the continent to a tiny forest in Michoacan, Mexico, or to the California coast, where they spend the winter before heading back up north to breed. Their numbers have declined sharply, however, due to human intrusions into their habitats, pesticides, diminishing forests and the effects of global warming. Last year, SantaCruz.com.html reported how the butterfly population of Natural Bridges had declined from a peak of 40,000-150,000 in the 1970s and 1980s to just 1,000 in 2009.
This year, the butterflies didn’t show up at all—at least not yet—another sign of how the world is changing, and not necessarily for the better. As Antoine de Saint-Exupéry pointed out in The Little Prince, “Grown-ups love figures. When you tell them that you have made a new friend, they never ask you any questions about essential matters. They never say to you, “What does his voice sound like? What games does he love best? Does he collect butterflies?” Instead, they demand: “How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much money does his father make?” Only from these figures do they think they have learned anything about him.”
Soon we may have lost our ability to collect butterflies, and with that, our youth.
Read More at the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
