Monarch Watch Update - August 17, 2001
http://www.MonarchWatch.org
monarch@ku.edu
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Contents:
1) Welcome!
4) 2001 Tagging Kits: Going, going...
5) Amazon.com and CafePress Affiliations
8) Home Earth
11) Fall Monarch Population and Migration
12) How to Unsubscribe from this Update
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1) Welcome to Monarch Watch's Update List!
You are receiving this email because you have provided Monarch Watch with your email address at some point and expressed interest in receiving updates from us. If you do not wish to receive these periodic (probably monthly) email updates or feel that you were subscribed in error, please see the unsubscribe information at the end of this message.
Have you somehow missed (or misplaced ;-) an update? Now you can find all of the updates archived online at
http://www.MonarchWatch.org/update
If you know someone that you think might be interested in receiving these email updates from Monarch Watch with monarch news, special announcements, tips on raising monarchs in your classroom, monarch tagging information and a whole lot more, please send them on over to
http://www.MonarchWatch.org/signup
to join our new Monarch-Watch-Update email list - it's easy!
Monarch Watch (http://www.MonarchWatch.org) is a not-for-profit educational outreach program based at the University of Kansas. We run a Monarch tagging program and offer Monarch Rearing Kits, Monarch Tagging Kits, and other educational/promotional materials that allow you to actively experience the monarch life cycle and its spectacular fall migration.If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us anytime!
Your friends at Monarch Watch
http://www.MonarchWatch.org
monarch@ku.edu
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This email update list has been *very* well received and is currently delivered to over 5,000 recipients all over the world - wow! Furthermore, it looks like we are adding more than a dozen or so email addresses a day...that's a lot of Monarch Watchers!
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A big THANK YOU goes out to Kaidan Inc. - the company has recently donated some photographic VR equipment to Monarch Watch. This equipment will allow us to use our digital camera to produce high-quality panoramas and/or QTVR movies to add to the educational offerings currently on our website. We have great plans for this equipment, including lots of "scenes" during our next Adopt-a-Classroom (http://www.monarchwatch.org/conserve/adopt.htm) trip to the schools near the Monarch Reserve in Mexico.
Check out the Panorama Gallery on Kaidan's site at
http://www.kaidan.com/products/pano-gallery.html
to see what we can do and if you have suggestions for panoramas you'd like to see on our site, please let us know!
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4) 2001 Tagging Kits: Going, going...
We are currently shipping the 2001 Tagging Kits and the tags are going fast! We have already received orders for 190,000 of the 250,000 tags available this year. In order to accommodate everyone that wants to participate in the tagging program this fall, we will begin limiting the number of tags per order to 25 - this would consist of a Tagging Membership or Tagging Kit; additional sets of tags will no longer be available.
Why only 250,000 tags? Given our current financial situation (and in turn, our limited staff) we simply do not have the resources to process a larger number of tags at this time.
If you haven't ordered your tags yet, head on over to
http://www.MonarchWatch.org/order
and get them today!
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5) Amazon.com and CafePress Affiliations
It seems a lot of people are using the links on our site when they want to purchase something at Amazon. Last quarter a total of $750.75 was spent on books, music, videos, games, and more through our "Amazon.com Portal" at
http://www.MonarchWatch.org/amazon
As a result, Monarch Watch received our first check from Amazon in the amount of $45.54 (5-15% of the total purchase price) - thanks! I plan on posting links to items that have been purchased by "Monarch Watchers" and may also include a "recommended by Monarch Watchers" page on our site to include links based on your suggestions - what do you think? This will allow Monarch Watchers easy access to items of interest and Monarch Watch will receive 15% of any purchases made via these direct links (vs 5% via our general link to Amazon.com).
Remember to keep us in mind when you need to shop at Amazon.com!
Similarly, Monarch Watch has accrued a "commission" of $51.00 through your purchases of Monarch Watch mugs and t-shirts at our CafePress store. We have received several requests/suggestions for images to be placed on sweatshirts, t-shirts, mugs, mousepads, tank tops, boxers, baseball caps, bucket hats and tote bags and we will create these items just as soon as we can!
Visit http://www.MonarchWatch.org/cafepress for complete details.
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We don't want to sound like a broken record, but with all of the new subscribers to this Update List we really need to keep publishing this message. We know there are sources of funding out there and hope that someone receiving this update will "know someone who knows someone" that will be able to match us up with the funding that we need to continue our mission of education, conservation and research.
As many of you now know, Monarch Watch continues to be financially challenged. We are just scraping by and are still searching for corporate or foundation support. Due to a shortfall in income we are attempting to enlarge our base of support through collaborative arrangements with other organizations. Any leads for potential sources of funding you can provide will be greatly appreciated!
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Due to the lack of substantial funding and the fact that our overnight shipping costs have nearly tripled without warning we are forced to increase the prices of our educational and promotional items. :-( The new pricing will take effect immediately (as soon as we settle on the increase); however, we will continue to accept 2001 order forms through the end of this year. We should have more information for you in the next update.
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We are getting closer to opening the new online storefront, tentatively named "Gulliver's Gift Shop" after our very own little logopillar :-) As soon as this new venture is launched we'll let you know - you can also expect a special offer via this update list ;-)
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As of 8 August, we have received 74 survey submissions, which means more than a few of you haven't visited the survey page yet ;-) The averages of the numeric scores (out of 10) are as follows: Overall 8.9; Navigation 8.4; Design 8.1; and Content 9.0. The feedback is overwhelmingly positive and a lot of great suggestions have been made - keep 'em coming!
Please take 5 minutes to fill out our short survey at
http://www.MonarchWatch.org/sitesurvey/
or send an email message with your feedback and/or suggestions to our webmaster at
Thanks again!
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Thank you for your patience with us! The day-to-day maintenance of Monarch Watch seems to be taking up a *lot* more of our time lately. We all wear many hats around here and are always working on several "mission-critical" projects at the same time, so things take a little longer to complete than we would like. We still anticipate that the Season Summary will be mailed out next month and when we have a firm date we will let you know.
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11) Fall Monarch Population and Migration
Although the number of monarchs at the overwintering sites in Mexico last winter was the lowest yet to be recorded (28.3 million) and the number of females that survived to reproduce this spring in the southern states was quite low, the monarch population appears to have made a remarkable recovery over the last 5 months. Reports from throughout the breeding range indicate the migratory population this fall will be much larger than that of 2000 and it may exceed the population in 1999 and perhaps even the population in 1997. In recent days large numbers of clustered monarchs have been reported from Winnipeg, northern Michigan and west central Wisconsin. The butterflies in Winnipeg should have already begun moving southward and the migration will begin in areas north of 45 degrees in the next week.
If you want to determine the approximate time for the migration to begin in your area, visit http://susdesign.com/sunangle/. Follow the instructions on the site and enter your latitude, date, time (12:01PM), and time zone (for the central time zone use "F" (GMT+6:00)) and time basis (solar). If you don't know your latitude, go to http://www.indo.com/distance/ and type in the name of the nearest city. For example, for Winnipeg (49:54 N) the altitude angle for today (17 August) is 53.76 degrees.
Generally, the migration starts close to when the AA reaches 56 degrees and peaks when the AA reaches 52 degrees. Most monarchs leave a particular latitude by the time the AA of the receding fall sun has reached 47 degrees. The interval, or migration window, defined by 56-47 is about 3.5 weeks. For example, in Lawrence, KS the first wave of the migration usually arrives on the 10-11th of September and the peak is near the 20th (AA = 52.39) with all but the last few migrants gone by the 4th of October (AA = 46.95).
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12) How to Unsubscribe from this Update
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Thanks!
Monarch Watch
http://www.MonarchWatch.org
monarch@ku.edu
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monarch@ku.edu