She called Southwest Airlines to ask they could fly the butterfly to Mexico. She would arrange for someone to pick up the monarch and release it in the mountains of Michoacan, where she has seen millions of monarchs mating in spring. “Otherwise, I knew this gorgeous creature would die,” she says.
After trying several departments of the airline, she spoke to Public Relations, not expecting to hear back. “The next day they called and said the only way they’d do it was if I’d accompany the butterfly, and they could only take me to San Antonio.”
The next step was to call Dr. Lincoln Brower, a leading monarch scientist who had served with Manos-Jones on the board of directors of Forests for Monarchs. She asked if San Antonio would be a good place to release the butterfly, and he said yes, the monarchs funnel through Texas on their way to Mexico. Dr. Chip Taylor, head of Monarch Watch, connected her with observers in San Antonio, who confirmed that monarchs were still passing through.
Taylor also informed her that without a permit for transporting live insects across state lines, she could be arrested when she stepped off the plane. Manos-Jones dug up the nerve to call the head entomologist at the USDA, which is responsible for granting such permits. He recognized her name, since he owns a copy of her book. He said a permit takes two to three months to acquire.
“I got on my soapbox and talked from my heart,” recalls Manos-Jones. “I said, ‘You can cut through the red tape — I know you can do it.’ He said, ‘Let me see.’ In two days, I had the permit. It was miraculous! I owe many people a debt of gratitude for making this improbable journey a reality.”
Hurricane Sandy came along and delayed the trip a few days, and then on November 5, accompanied by a Southwest Airlines videographer, Manos-Jones boarded a flight at the airport in Albany.
Both Taylor and Brower had given her tips on packing the butterfly, which she carried on her lap throughout the flight, housed in a padded, ice-cooled package.
In San Antonio, Monika Maeckle, a self-styled “butterfly evangelist,” conveyed Manos-Jones and her charge to the local botanical garden, where monarchs and other butterflies were feeding on the flowers. After a ceremony attended by local media and at least one intrigued passenger from the Southwest flight, Manos-Jones released the monarch. It flew a short distance away, then came back and landed on her head.
“On Labor Day weekend in 1972, the first butterfly I ever raised emerged from its chrysalis,” she says. “When I let that butterfly go, she too returned to land on me before she took off.”
The 2012 monarch had lived with Manos-Jones from October 20 to November 5, drinking nectar from her hand. “We knew each other very well,” she says. “I received an email from a wildilfe rehabilitator who said landing on me was the butterfly’s way of saying thank you.”
To see the 1:44 video summarizing the monarch’s trip to San Antonio, go to Youtube.com and search for “Southwest monarch.” Visit https://spiritofbutterflies.com for information on Maraleen Manos-Jones’s book The Spirit of Butterflies, the programs she offers at her gardens in Shokan, and advice on creating your own butterfly garden.
Wow! That must have been a really big carbon footprint left by that plane – all to fly a butterfly to Mexico?! How is that saving the planet?