MONARCH BUTTERFLY AND POLLINATOR FESTIVAL

The Texas Butterfly Ranch is proud to present
the fifth annual Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Festival

A month of science, education, art and celebration
October 1 – October 29, 2020

Monarch Butterfly & Pollinator Festival

Hello partners of the Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Festival!

We hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy during these crazy times. What a trying year! Like you, we could never have imagined 2020.

Friends, in light of the unpredictability wrought by COVID-19, the 2020 edition of the Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Festival will take a virtual turn in place of the annual festival at the Pearl. We have no plans to host in-person, ticketed events.

The Festival will unfold during the entire month of October and we invite you to submit your own mission-aligned events that we can include in our calendar and promote.

So as not to compete with each other on similar events and times, check out what’s on tap so far, below. If you have an appropriate event, please share and we’ll add it to our calendar and promote it with you. We hope to publish the calendar in late August.

Click on the Dates to Learn More about Each Event

Teachers at each of the 25 most underserved schools will receive a pop-up cage, a milkweed plant, a monarch caterpillar and a tag on October 1. We’re designing curriculum to accompany the caterpillar condos.

NYTimes best selling author Doug Tallamy, author of Nature’s Best Hope, who pretty much introduced us all to the idea of native plant landscaping, will do a FREE webinar/Zoom presentation for us at 6:30 PM, followed by a San Antonio-centric Q & A.

Medellín, who captivated audiences at our 2019 Festival, will school us on the truth about bats and COVID-19 at 6:30 PM. FREE. Medellín will join us afterward for a Mezcal toast.

Tallamy will lead a FREE teacher training workshop focused on native plant gardens in conjunction with the San Antonio River Authority on Saturday.

Tagged monarch butterflies will be released in the names of people who passed this year—specifically those lost to COVID-19, police brutality and other causes. The butterfly releases will take place at Confluence Park and be recorded for use in a video to be released later.

We’ll release the video of the month’s events, remembering this crazy year.

Please let us know if you have an event that syncs with the Festival mission of using the majesty of the monarch butterfly migration to educate the community on conservation, the wildlife pollinators that perform the essential work of making one of every three bites of our food possible, and our unique connection to Mexico.

Approved events will be added to the platform calendar once we receive all appropriate information (date, location, etc.) via the form at the bottom of the page, or via this link. We look forward to collaborating with you! And: we welcome your input.

Thank you for all you do for our community, and please stay in touch.

Meanwhile, stay safe, sane and healthy. Let us know if you have questions.

Gracias and best wishes.

Monika

Monika Maeckle, Director, Monarch Butterfly and Pollinator Festival