Number of Monarch Butterflies Drop by Ominous 59 Percent in Mexico Mark Stevenson - Associated Press
go to original March 14, 2013

If you heard about those amazing butterflies and thier migration across North America from Canada to Mexico and you want to see it yourself this might help you to do it. All you need to do is visit Michoacan in Mexico around February or March each year. (thehomertov)

MEXICO CITY — The amount of Monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico dropped 59 percent this year, falling to the lowest level since comparable record-keeping began 20 years ago, scientists reported Wednesday.

It was the third straight year of declines for the orange-and-black butterflies that migrate from the United States and Canada to spend the winter in mountaintop fir forests in central Mexico. Six of the last seven years have shown drops, and there are now only one-fifteenth as many butterflies as there were in 1997.

The decline now marks a statistical long-term trend and can no longer be seen as a combination of yearly or seasonal events, the experts said. But they differed on the possible causes.

Illegal logging in the reserve established in the Monarch wintering grounds was long thought to contribute, but such logging has been vastly reduced by increased protection, enforcement and alternative development programs in Mexico.

The World Wildlife Fund, one of the groups that sponsored the butterfly census, blamed climate conditions and agricultural practices, especially the use of pesticides that kill off the Monarchs' main food source, milkweed. The butterflies breed and live in the north in the summer, and migrate to Mexico in the winter.

Read the whole story at The Tribune

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