In this photo taken 15 February 2013, Monarch butterflies are collected in a net to be tested for the ophroyocystis elektroscirrha parasite that inhibits their flight, at El Capulin reserve, near Zitacuaro, Mexico. The number of Monarch butterflies wintering in Mexico dropped 59 percent in 2013, falling to the lowest level since comparable record-keeping began 20 years earlier. Photo: Marjorie Miller / AP Photo

By Mark Stevenson
13 March 2013 MEXICO CITY (AP) – 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. “The decrease of Monarch butterflies … probably is due to the negative effects of reduction in milkweed and extreme variation in the United States and Canada,” the fund and its partner organizations said in a statement. Omar Vidal, the World Wildlife Fund director in Mexico, said: “The conservation of the Monarch butterfly is a shared responsibility between Mexico, the United States, and Canada. By protecting the reserves and having practically eliminated large-scale illegal logging, Mexico has done its part.” “It is now necessary for the United States and Canada to do their part and protect the butterflies’ habitat in their territories,” Vidal said. Logging was once considered the main threat to the reserve, located west of Mexico City. At its peak in 2005, logging devastated as many as 1,140 acres (461 hectares) annually in the reserve, which covers 193,000 acres (56,259-hectares). But a 2012 aerial survey showed almost no detectable logging, the first time that logging had not been found in detectable amounts since the mountaintop forests were declared a nature reserve in 2000. Lincoln Brower, a leading entomologist at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, said in a statement that “the report of the dwindling Monarch butterfly winter residence in Mexico is ominous.” “This is not just the lowest population recorded in the 20 years for which we have records,” Brower said. “It is the continuation of a statistically significant decrease in the Monarch population that began at least a decade ago.” […] “All three countries need to face up to the fact that it is our collective activities that are killing the migratory phenomenon of the Monarch butterfly,” he said. Environmentalist and writer Homero Aridjis praised Mexico for progress in reducing illegal logging, but added that “low intensity logging, not detected in satellite image analysis, continues unabated in and near critical overwintering habitats.” [more]

Monarch butterflies drop ominously in Mexico