Nature Reserves Turned Into Killing Fields for Monarchs

IN AN amazing migratory flight, monarch butterflies that summer in Canada and the northern United States spread their orange-and-black wings and waft themselves out of Canada, across the United States, and concentrate in one region west of Mexico City. There, in 1986, the Mexican government created five nature reserves in mountains 11,000 feet [3,400 m] high that are covered with fir trees. According to a 1994 census, at least 60 million monarchs winter in the reserves.

Fir trees are especially preferred by the monarchs because the trees form a dense canopy that protects the butterflies from cold rain and snow. Logging is prohibited on these five reserves, but that does not stop illegal logging. Butterfly scientists are concerned that the “logging of the fir trees in the Mexican reserves, despite Government prohibitions, is leaving the monarchs more vulnerable to severe storms and cold. . . . The loss of trees and their canopies make it more likely that the butterflies will be exposed to rain and snow.” Logging breaks up the protective canopy. As Lincoln Brower, zoologist at the University of Florida at Gainesville, said concerning the protective cover for the monarchs: “The more these forests are degraded, the more holes there are in their blanket.”

“Bad weather and cutting of trees are fatal to butterflies,” said The New York Times. It then reported on a snowfall in the reserves on the night of December 30, 1995: “Government forest rangers and biologists who toured part of the reserves said there were snow banks densely littered with thousands upon thousands of frozen monarchs, with many butterflies buried under the snow.”

The photo at the top of this page confirms the tragic story.

[Picture Credit Line on page 31]

Jorge Nunez/Sipa Press