The Monarch habitat deforestation "crisis" in Mexico

Paul Cherubini monarch at saber.net
Mon Mar 5 17:28:00 EST 2001


Reality:

http://www.saber.net/~monarch/1990.jpeg 
(early morning shot which doesn't highlight tree trunks)

http://www.saber.net/~monarch/2001.jpeg 
(late afternoon shot which highlights tree trunks)

vs. Brower study Animation: 
http://www.saber.net/~monarch/Angangueoanimated.jpeg
(colony  in the middle is El Rosario Sanctuary)

vs. New York Times Sept. 12, 2000 article which stated:

"Now an international team of researchers has reported that what was a 
broad swath of thousands of acres of intact forest just 30 years ago has
since been reduced to peppered remnants in a sea of farms, homes, 
cattle-grazing areas and logged and degraded woods. This has occurred
even in areas designated as protected monarch sanctuaries for more 
than a decade." 

"The survey, the first scientific study of the monarchs' habitat in the 
mountains of central Mexico, mapped forest changes using aerial
photographs taken over three decades. The findings, which were 
made available to The New York Times, showed that only a 
little more than half of what was intact forest remained. The 
rest has suffered some degree of degradation, from minor logging 
to having had the forest entirely removed. The researchers estimate
 that in 50 years, at the current rate of deforestation, nearly all the
 original forest will be similarly degraded." 

''From what I've seen there year after year, I predicted it would be 
bad and getting worse,'' said Dr. Lincoln P. Brower, a monarch 
biologist at Sweet Briar College who was an author of the new study 
with colleagues at the National Autonomous University of Mexico 
and the World Wildlife Fund. ''But I didn't predict it would be this bad. 
The maps just floored me.''  

Paul Cherubini Placerville, Calif.

 
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