Chasing Monarchs

by Pyle, Robert Michael

• ISBN13: 9780395828205
• ISBN10: 0395828201
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-01-01
• Publisher: HOUGHTON MIFFLIN

Summary

After chasing Bigfoot in his last book,Robert Pyle has shifted his attention to a smaller creature, but one that is just as remarkable. The monarch butterfly is our best-known and best-loved insect, and its annual migration over thousands of miles is an extraordinary natural phenomenon, though one that is poorly understood. Myths about the monarchs' travels abound, and to separate fact from fiction, Pyle set out late one summer to follow the wanderers south from their northernmost breeding grounds in British Columbia. He migrated with them down the Columbia, Snake, Bear, and Colorado Rivers, across the Bonneville Salt Flats, through Hell's Canyon and the Grand Canyon, to Mexico, then turned up the California coast to track another leg of their migration. CHASING MONARCHS is one of the most fascinating book ever written about butterflies. It's also a lively and compelling travel book about the American West, filled with unforgettable places and characters, both animal and human.

Author Biography

Robert Michael Pyle is the author of fourteen books, including Chasing Monarchs, Where Bigfoot Walks, and Wintergreen, which won the John Burroughs Medal. A Yale-trained ecologist and a Guggenheim Fellow, he is a full-time writer living in southwestern Washington.

Table of Contents

Beginnings: Sky River	1	(10)
Similkameen	11	(17)
Okanogan	28	(15)
Grand Coulee	43	(14)
Crab	57	(16)
Columbia	73	(28)
Deschutes--John Day	101	(17)
Hell's Canyon	118	(9)
Snake	127	(18)
Bear	145	(14)
Bonneville	159	(22)
Apache Gold	181	(16)
Guadalupe	197	(13)
Buenos Aires	210	(26)
Cibola	223	(13)
Pacifico	236	(17)
Fandango	253	(24)
Endings: Recovery	268	(9)
Appendix Conserving the Monarch of the Americas	277	(4)
Further Reading and Resources	281	(6)
Acknowledgments	287	(4)
Index	291