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- Max enjoys both the monarch wings and wind spinner at the Monarch Festival.
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- Mariachi Jalisco entertained patrons of the festival and themselves.
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- Mayor Amáda Márquez Simula and Angela Montero Gonzalez address the crowd and kick off the festivities.
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- Monarch art and imagery adorned Sullivan Park. (Davis Steen)
A flight from MSP Airport to Morelia, Michoacan, is about 6 hours, though good luck finding a flight without a layover in Dallas or Houston.
That same flight for a monarch butterfly can take up to three months, with more than one layover. The flights annually start in August and the butterflies reach their winter grounds in the state of Michoacan, Mexico, by November.
“We released two monarch butterflies at the end of the festival,” Mayor Amáda Márquez Simula said.
Columbia Heights took a moment on August 8 to honor these pollinators for the food they help produce, the beauty their colors and patterns bring to the world and the connection they give our northern state to the middle of Mexico.
“In Mexican folklore, the Monarch is a symbol of our ancestors,” Márquez Simula said. “We want to do the stewardship to make our ancestors proud.”
The Mayors’ Monarch Pledge, through the National Wildlife Federation (NWF), was taken by Columbia Heights and Márquez Simula back in 2021. The Monarch Festival has continued to grow as the city continues its commitment to the winged pollinator.
“The (Mayors’ Monarch) Pledge, an organization across the nation, helps people know that even a small part can help to make a change,” Márquez Simula said.
The Monarch Festival, held this year at Sullivan Park, was a bilingual event that welcomed community members and families to learn about this orange and black pollinator.
“We’re used to having them around in Mexico,” Angela Montero Gonzalez said. Montero Gonzalez served as the Spanish translator for the festival and is a four-year Columbia Heights resident who has seen the Monarch butterflies in Mexico. “Instead of leaves, all the things you see are butterflies. They would get so heavy they would take down branches.”
The NWF launched the Mayors’ Monarch Pledge in 2015 and states they have more than 600 mayors, 6 million people engaged and 6,500 acres of monarch habitat restored. To take the pledge, the city has to complete a three step process, that includes continued reporting of progress each year.
“One of every three bites of food are thanks to pollinators,” Márquez Simula said. “We can’t replicate that with human impact alone.”