Encouraging early Monarch Report from Mexico

[Paul Cherubini]

After a massive die-off last year, millions of monarch butterflies have returned to 
Mexico by Jan Jarboe Russell 12-01-2002:
http://www.mysanantonio.com/keyword/search/index.cfm
                  
ROSARIO, Mexico ‹ "Last year, this forest was a carpet of dead butterflies," 
said Maximiliano Garcia, a 78-year-old native of this mountain sanctuary that 
is the winter nesting ground of monarch butterflies. "But this year, it's like a 
miracle, there are more monarchs than ever before."

We are standing about 10,000 feet above sea level in the dense and rural Sierra 
Madre Occidental mountains. The forest is eerily silent. Soon the clusters of 
monarch butterflies stir from their sleep on boughs of fir and pine trees. 
When the sun breaks through the trees, thousands of monarchs stir from their 
sleep, and spiral upwards toward the light. In an instant, the sky is a swirling 
orange cloud of butterflies. 

This year's annual arrival of monarch butterflies to Mexico's Michoacan state, 
after a 2,485-mile journey from the cold of Southern Canada, does indeed 
seem miraculous. 

Even on an ordinary year, the monarchs are a testimony to nature's instinct 
for survival. But this year the butterflies have persevered against all odds.
According to forest rangers at El Rosario, one of the monarch's sanctuaries, 
there are four times as many butterflies this year as last. 

That is remarkable, given the fact that last January an estimated 150 million 
to 250 million monarchs died in these forests due to an unusual combination 
of freezing temperatures and heavy rains. It was the worst die-off in history. 
Natives such as Garcia were horrified to see heavy clusters of frozen 
butterflies hanging on trees and dead monarchs 13 to 15 inches deep lying 
on the ground. "I tried to be stoic," said Garcia. "But I am an old man and 
I was very sad."

Forest rangers at El Rosario believe that the monarchs compensated for 
last year's die-off by over-breeding.

 
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