I appreciated learning more about the monarchs and her personal physical and mental challenges of this endeavor. Dykman tells the story of her journey in her new memoir, “Bicycling With Butterflies: My 10,201-Mile Journey Following the Monarch Migration. And I especially enjoyed the programs she does in schools all during her trip and her fun interaction with kids. She began her 10,201 mile trip in Mexico at one of the overwintering sanctuaries for Monarchs and followed the general migration path of the monarchs into the US, up through the center of the country into Canada and back around, but in a more eastern pathway.

If there is a criticism, it might be that there are only a limited number of ways to keep the miles interesting. In such clusters, they are protected by both the trees and the butterfly bodies that make up the outer edges of each mass (a bit like penguins). The migration of the monarch butterflies is one of the wonders of the world – we must save it for future generations.The way she describes the monarchs is magical and her appreciation for nature shines through on every page. Although she kept a diary as her reference for the trip, it is obvious that she bases her writing on an extensive background as a naturalist, and biologist. The group estimates that the population of monarch butterflies in North America has declined between 22% and 72% over 10 years, depending on the measurement method. Being stuck on one side of the river with no options reiterated what I already knew: society tells cyclists we’re not important, that we don’t deserve space.

The point of this book was to spread awareness about Monarchs and to make people care more about their plight, and it definitely achieves that goal. Sara Dykman made history when she became the first person to bicycle alongside monarch butterflies on their storied annual migration – a round-trip adventure that included three countries and more than 10,000 miles. She rides with the butterflies north, solo, across America, into Canada, a five-thousand mile, months-long ride, and then five thousand miles back to their sanctuary in Mexico. I reminded myself that ever since I had been biking, even as a child making laps around the block, I had been proving to myself that I could go the distance. The author's expertise is not explained until nearly a third of the way through, and the text suffers from unnecessary details of the journey and surprisingly flat character sketches of interesting people who are devoted to the monarchs' cause.

Private property purists have recently gotten the Supreme Court to greatly weaken watershed protections in ways that ignore biology and common sense and stop essentially all impact analysis at those little lines. There are established non-migrating colonies of Monarchs in Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand, and along the Mediterranean (although how they got to any of these places is anyone’s guess except that humans almost surely had some role in it).

Un libro que sin duda debemos leer todos los que vivimos a lo largo de la ruta migratoria de la mariposa monarca, ya que nos ayuda a comprender un poco mas lo intrincado del viaje que hacen estas mariposas para poder pasar el invierno en Mexico y regresar a EUA y Canada para su reproducción. I had also long since learned that though I was following the monarchs, finding them was not the most important part. How Sara got involved in the monarch migration and her early interest in animals, especially ones that are often overlooked.Her passion for nature and conservation are evident as she educates her readers and fascinates them with tales of her unconventional adventures, serendipitous meetings and of course, monarch sightings. This book is comprised of a perfectly calibrated mixture of daring adventure and exploration, nature writing and science communication.