January 9 was the 41st anniversary of the discovery of a mountain of monarch butterflies in Mexico.
The discovery of the overwintering place of the graceful monarch butterfly had taken several decades of searching by thousands of volunteers.
But after trekking across an entire continent for an answer, it was a team led by Canadian zoologists led by Fred Urquhart that final tracked the resting place of the butterflies as they made their migratory journeys south.
Ken Brugger and Catalina Trail’s determination helped the team find the answers they had been looking for.
The butterflies attach themselves to oyamel trees in the Sierra Madre Mountains, in eastern Mexico.
The monarch butterfly is under threat due to climate change and deforestation in the country, where the species migrates to from the the US and Canada in winter.