Do Monarchs need Mexican forests?

Paul Cherubini monarch at saber.net
Fri Apr 19 13:01:40 EDT 2002


Pat, I just try to counter balance the one-sided  "situation 
is dire" view the public gets bombarded with each year
about the monarch situation in Mexico.

Like in Feb-March 2001 the monarch colony that was in the
headlines was one called Cerro San Andres.
http://www.mindspring.com/~cherubini/kurtj.jpg
There were 1,000,000 monarchs on this mountain
early that winter and then in January 2001, 300,000 of the 
butterflies were found dead on the ground.  
Media stories circulated around the world that the
colony had been sprayed by angry loggers with DDT.
Scientists were speculating that due to some
recent logging and a big fire 3 years ago that the San Andres
habitat had become inadequate for continued use by the
monarchs. http://www.mindspring.com/~cherubini/kurtj2.jpg

This winter however, there was not a single
media report or comment by any of the scientists 
about the monarch situation on San Andres.  Why no
follow up report about whether or not the habitat
had indeed become inadequate for continued use by the
monarchs? 

I feel the reason there was no follow up
report is because the monarch population on San
Andres this winter was embarrassingly large:
5,200,000 butterflies officially.  That's 5.2 times
as many butterflies in the previous year!

Paul Cherubini

 
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