This streambox broadcasts the sounds of the Cerro Pelón monoarch butterfly reserve near Macheros in the State of Mexico. It is currently installed in the village of Macheros near a stream up in the mountains for maintenance and testing of a wifi connection.

It is one of 5 planned nodes of open microphones along the migratory routes, including boxes already installed at Point Pelee National Park in Ontario and Jasper Ridge Biosphere Preserve in California.

It is part of the project 'Following the Flight of the Monarchs'. https://followingtheflightofthemonarchs.com

‘Following the Flight of the Monarchs’, is an interdisciplinary acoustic ecology project bringing together artists and scientists, connecting with ecosystems and communities along the migration routes of monarch butterflies as they travel the 3,000 mile journey between Mexico and Canada each year. It is led by Rob Mackay at Newcastle University, UK in collaboration with Soundcamp and a number of partners in Canada, USA, and Mexico. 

 

Streamboxes are being installed along the monarch butterfly migration routes between Canada and Mexico. These livestream the soundscapes of these different ecosystems 24/7 via the Locus Sonus Soundmap (http://locusonus.org/soundmap/051/). The first of the boxes was successfully installed in the Cerro Pelón UNESCO monarch butterfly reserve in Mexico in 2018, and the streambox at Point Pelee National Park was installed in 2019. A temporary stream is set up in Richmond Virginia by Vaughn Garland, and a permanent box will be installed on the Eastern Shores of Virginia in collaboration with the Coastal Virginia Wildlife Observatory. We are also collaborating with Trevor Herbert and his stream from Jasper Ridge Biosphere Preserve in San José, California, and Joel Goodwin in Austin Texas. David Blink will be setting up a stream near Mount Shasta in Northern California. Scientists and park rangers on the project include Dr Pablo Jaramillo Lopez (UNAM, Mexico); Butterflies and Their People Arbortists (Macheros, Mexico), Pato Moreno & Franco Mendoza (Cerro Pelón Biosphere Reserve); Andrew Laforet & Darlene Burgess (Point Pelee National Park); Brian Taber & Nancy Bernhardt (CVWO); Dr Rebeca Quiñonez (National Wildlife Federation). The streams are being used for ecosystem monitoring as well as integrating into artworks which are raising awareness of the issues the monarchs face, whose numbers have declined by nearly 90% over the past two decades.

Artefacts produced so far include a touring installation (presented at the Eden Project, and various international conferences and festivals; a networked telematic performance; and a radio programme for BBC Radio 3 - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000qyhz).