Butterfly Bomb Or Bad Weather? - reason for butterfly deaths in Mexico unknown - Brief Article

American Forests, Summer, 2001

Millions of monarch butterflies died in Mexican forests this spring before they could make their seasonal migration to Canada. Experts were still debating whether the deaths were due to chemicals or a cold snap, hut either way, the politics of logging was part of the discussion.

According to Reuters, an environmental lobbying group accused loggers of wiping out 22 million of the orange and black insects by spraying them with pesticides as payback after the government extended the size of a federally protected forest sanctuary. Monarchs winter in the forests of Mexico's Michoacan state from November to March before making the 3,000-mile flight back to Canada to lay their eggs.

Environmental officials with the Mexican government later disputed the group's claim, saying that autopsies of 300 of the monarchs found no traces of toxins. Instead, the officials believe that the monarchs died from the cold, pointing out that reduced tree canopy could leave butterflies more vulnerable to the elements than in the past. A recent study showed farming and illegal logging have destroyed 44 percent of the original forest in the last 30 years and predicted that, at that rate, the forest would be gene by 2050.

The deaths are cause for alarm, said Lee Ann Mallett, deputy director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Canada.

"Whether it's due to pesticides or whether it's due to climate, the loss of more than 10 percent of the monarch population is a serious threat to their survival as a species," she told Reuters.

But David Gibo, a butterfly expert at the University of Toronto, seemed unfazed, telling Reuters the insects are tougher than they appear and could handle the loss without missing a beat.