Encouraging early Monarch Report from Mexico

[Bill Yule]

Hi all.
    Regarding the post on Monarchs return to Mexico  I would encourage
everyone to go to the source of this post (i.e. a website called KENS 5) and
read the entire text.  I did. I found amazing things.
1. Although an estimated 150-250,000,000 monarchs died there last year
Rangers at El Rosario say there are four times as many butterflies there
this year!   Hmmm...by my calculations there must be more than a billion
butterflies there.  I've got to see this.
2. Rangers explained the unprecedented fecundity this way, "the monarchs
compensated for last year's die off by overbreeding." I take this to mean
that the twice/thrice/four times removed descendants of last year's dead
monarchs kept the memory of their ancestors alive and used this as
motivation to "get busy" (as young people say) and reproduce. (;>}!
3. Apparently there is an incredible 78 year old butterfly guide by the name
of Max Garcia who leads 250,000 monarch lovers a year up the mountain to
view the wintering butterflies!  I want to meet this man!  I must be
misreading this somehow.  It must be very crowded in these remote mountains
during butterfly season.
4. Finally I'm relieved to find that all my foolish worry about
deforestation and habitat destruction in the mountains of Michoacan has been
for naught because the Mexican government has passed protective laws which
prohibit people from making "loud noises" because, as the KENS 5 website
news story informs us,"about 80% of a Monarch's body is ears".  Well that
does it, either this finding is new to science or I'm returning my
undergraduate University degree in Biology because they never taught me that
important fact in Invertebrate Zoology.  I've got to spend more time at this
website, who knows what else I've missed?  It's amazing the facts that slip
by when you're not paying attention...    ;>{   Well back to the books.

                        I would certainly be pleased to find that Monarchs
have returned in force to wintering grounds and I have little doubt that
they will.  I have no reason to doubt reports that they have in fact
returned.  (There were just too many silly impressions and "facts" in the
"news" article referred to, to resist poking a little good natured fun at.
Maybe the original was written in Spanish and there were translation
problems?).   Monarchs are well adapted to many disturbances and the
survival techniques that they exhibit are extraordinary and fascinating.
That is not to say that logging, deforestation and habitat destruction are
not relevant issues to long term survival of wintering Monarch population.
Habitat destruction and sensitivity to temperature fluctuations caused by
natural and human habitat modifications are still critical factors in the
wintering grounds to stay aware of.  THAT is my only point in this post.

                                            Bill Yule
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Cherubini" <monarch at saber.net>
To: "TILS talk" <TILS-leps-talk at yahoogroups.com>
Cc: "LEPS-L" <LEPS-L at lists.yale.edu>
Sent: Monday, December 02, 2002 3:29 AM
Subject: Encouraging early Monarch Report from Mexico


> 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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