Despite suffering a significant population decline in the last twenty years, monarch butterflies in North America are expected to make a recovery this year following the conservation efforts implemented by different governments, according to the environment minister of Mexico.
Rafael Pacchiano, secretary of the environment for Mexico, announced on Thursday, Nov. 12, that authorities anticipate a four-fold increase in the population of monarch butterflies found in the country's pine and fir forests. This area is where the insects typically flock to after making their annual 2,500-mile journey from Canada and other northern regions.
"We are calculating that three to four times more butterflies will arrive compared to last year," Pacchiano said.
Estimates showed that there were around 56.6 million monarch butterflies that arrived in Mexico the previous season.
The number of monarch butterflies in the country dropped to a record low of 35 million (close to 90 percent) in the past two years. Environment experts believe this was caused by illegal logging and overuse of pesticides that left many milkweed plants severely damaged for the butterflies to feed on or lay their eggs on.
The butterflies reached a peak population of about one billion during the 1990s.
Pacchiano said the expected increase this season is a result of conservation efforts made by officials from the United States, Canada and Mexico that included setting aside more habitats for the monarch butterflies and improved controls on pesticide use and logging practices.
The three governments are also planning to reestablish thousands of hectares of agricultural land in the U.S. throughout the next few years in order to lessen extinction threats that the monarch butterflies face and help increase their populations by as much as 225 million individual butterflies every year.
Scientists have long been interested in finding out how the monarch butterflies are able to navigate their mass migration each year.
The insects have shown the ability to use the position of the sun or the magnetic field of Earth to correctly orient themselves of their own position, but it is still unknown how younger generations of the butterfly can navigate toward wintering sites despite not having been to these areas before.
During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said the government is committed to protecting the population of monarch butterflies in North America through the help of the Canadian and Mexican governments.
She pointed out that the U.S. is currently working to reintroduce milkweed plants on an area of about 1,160 square miles over the next five years.
Photo: Lori Branham | Flickr
