the annual migration of North America’s
monarch butterflies is one of the great
spectacles of nature each year up to 300
million monarchs travel more than 2,000
miles from northern America and Canada
to a remote forest 200 miles west of
Mexico City but they are as fragile as
they are beautiful sudden changes in
their environment can mean disaster a
January 2002 rain storm followed with
freezing temperatures claimed as many as
250 million almost 80% of the population
in the El Rosario butterfly sanctuary
just one of a half-dozen sanctuaries in
the area their bodies covered the forest
floor giving off an unusual odor Mike
Quinn is a Texas biologist with monarch
watch an organization based out of the
University of Kansas he suspects logging
which is encroached upon these reserves
may have contributed to the kill off
logging is right up to the edge of the
colony and logging opens up the forest
and lets in the cold air and freezes
penetrate into the forest whereas an
intact forest acts as both an umbrella
and as a blanket and that will severely
protect the Monarchs in the last few
decades nearly half of the woods the
Monarchs depend on in this region have
been destroyed primarily by illegal
logging
the Mexican government along with the
World Wildlife Fund has launched efforts
to preserve what is left offering to pay
landowners to not cut trees but the
money is very limited $18 for every
cubic meter of log of a wood not nearly
as much revenue as logging generates
the 2002 storm wasn’t the first to
strike the monarch population nor will
it likely be the last for the moment
millions of the monarch butterflies
still take to the skies each year
[Music]
monarch butterflies is one of the great
spectacles of nature each year up to 300
million monarchs travel more than 2,000
miles from northern America and Canada
to a remote forest 200 miles west of
Mexico City but they are as fragile as
they are beautiful sudden changes in
their environment can mean disaster a
January 2002 rain storm followed with
freezing temperatures claimed as many as
250 million almost 80% of the population
in the El Rosario butterfly sanctuary
just one of a half-dozen sanctuaries in
the area their bodies covered the forest
floor giving off an unusual odor Mike
Quinn is a Texas biologist with monarch
watch an organization based out of the
University of Kansas he suspects logging
which is encroached upon these reserves
may have contributed to the kill off
logging is right up to the edge of the
colony and logging opens up the forest
and lets in the cold air and freezes
penetrate into the forest whereas an
intact forest acts as both an umbrella
and as a blanket and that will severely
protect the Monarchs in the last few
decades nearly half of the woods the
Monarchs depend on in this region have
been destroyed primarily by illegal
logging
the Mexican government along with the
World Wildlife Fund has launched efforts
to preserve what is left offering to pay
landowners to not cut trees but the
money is very limited $18 for every
cubic meter of log of a wood not nearly
as much revenue as logging generates
the 2002 storm wasn’t the first to
strike the monarch population nor will
it likely be the last for the moment
millions of the monarch butterflies
still take to the skies each year
[Music]
Please follow and like us: