| TOWN OF ULSTER - Like a butterfly alighting on a blade of grass, the Papalotzin touched down at the Kingston Airpark on Friday, the first U.S. stop for the ultralight glider and its crew on their international journey from Canada to the mountains of central Mexico. Dozens of people gathered to watch the landing and to meet Francisco "Vico" Gutierrez, the man who has embarked on the 3,000-mile journey in an effort to call attention to the plight of the Monarch butterfly. Like the Monarch, Gutierrez began his trek - in a ultralight decorated as a Monarch butterfly and named Papalotzin, which means Royal Butterfly - last week in Montreal, the same time the butterflies in that area began their southward migration. Gutierrez will follow their path as they travel across the United States gathering with Monarchs from other areas of the nation. He will arrive in the Mexican state of Michoacan in November, as will hundreds of millions of Monarch butterflies who will spend the winter in the high altitude oyamel trees of the Neovolcanic mountain range. Gutierrez's flight is sponsored by the state of Michoacan, the World Wildlife Fund and Telcel, a wireless telephone company in Mexico. "These little things that weigh less than a fraction of an ounce fly valiantly through smog and storms ... to the sacred mountains of Mexico," said Maraleen Manos-Jones, who organized a reception of Gutierrez and his crew at the airport in Ulster. A butterfly expert who spent months in the Michoacan mountain range searching for the butterflies' wintering ground, Manos-Jones is involved in efforts to raise money to help reforest the mountain range where the butterflies migrate. Calling the yearly migration "one of the most incredible phenomenon in not the world, the solar system," Gutierrez, a wildlife photographer, said the loss of the wintering habitat and pollutants threaten the butterflies' existence. "I want my children to see this phenomenon," Gutierrez said. "The U.S., Mexico and Canada must work together to protect this." Gutierrez called the Monarch a "measure of the health of the Earth" and said "it's time to recover the health of this planet." As part of his effort, Gutierrez will produce a one-hour documentary from the air and from the ground on the life, flight and issues faced by the Monarch butterfly in the three countries. Gutierrez had planned to continue on his journey Friday afternoon but said a strong breeze blowing through the area would keep him grounded until today, when he will travel to New York City and the site of the former World Trade Center.
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