Mexican Monarchs

Wed Mar 7 19:30:44 EST 2001

Greetings:

I thought this might be an interesting addition to our
current disscussions on over-wintering Monarchs.

Bob Parcelles, Jr.
Pinellas Park, FL

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - To regain protected forest
land, 
loggers may 
have deliberately wiped out some 22 million Monarch 
butterflies which 
migrate annually from Canada to Mexico for the winter,
a 
top 
environmentalist said on Tuesday. Homero Aridjis, head
of 
the
environmental lobby Group of 100, told Reuters loggers
were 
believed to
have sprayed pesticide on the orange and black
butterflies 
in order to
regain some 216 square miles of forest declared
protected 
by the
government.

"There has been a massive slaughter of the butterflies
in 
two 
sanctuaries," Aridjis said. "This will affect the 
reproduction 
process completely. Now we don't know how many
butterflies 
will come 
this autumn."

Millions of monarch butterflies migrate some 3,000
miles 
annually to 
flee the icy winter in Canada and the United States
for the 
warmer 
fir forests in Mexico's central Michoacan state, some
70 
miles west 
of Mexico City. For five months of the year,
Michoacan's 
trees are
turned into a flaming orange and the forest is
carpeted 
with the
delicate winged creatures. The migration has taken
place 
for the past
10,000 years, Aridjis said. The butterflies normally
arrive 
in early
November and return north to lay eggs at the end of
March.

In November last year, the government of former
President 
Ernesto 
Zedillo extended the land devoted to five sanctuaries.
The 
move was in
response to a study showing that farming and illegal 
logging had
destroyed 44 percent of the original forest since
1971. 
Without drastic
action, the study predicted the original forest would 
disappear in under
50 years.

"The new decree could have prompted this," Aridjis
said. 
"If there 
are no butterflies they can claim the trees without 
problem." But
government environmental watchdog Profepa said it had
not 
heard 
of the butterfly slaughter, according to inspector
Joel 
Rodriguez.
"We haven't ever registered people using pesticides.
But 
it's one of 
the zones where they have the most illegal logging,"
he 
said. "It 
(the butterfly deaths) could also be a result of the 
freezing this 
winter which happens every four or five years."

The U.S.-based nonprofit group Packard Foundation
donated 
more than 
$5 million to the Worldwide Fund for Nature to help
the 
Mexican 
government rent or buy logging rights from local
residents 
to 
compensate for lost income while developing
alternative job 
sources.
Aridjis said the loggers had targeted two sanctuaries
-- 
Cerro San 
Andres and Las Palomas -- in the past two weeks.

"The wings of the butterflies found inert on the
ground had 
a strange 
luster and there was a smell of pesticide and petrol
in the 
sanctuaries," he said.

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#######################################################--

=====
Bob Parcelles, Jr
Pinellas Park, FL
RJP Associates <rjpassociates at yahoo.com>
rjparcelles at yahoo.com
http://rainforest.care2.com/welcome?w=976131876
"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."- Confucius

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