Dying Monarchs - Updates - butterfly - Brief Article

E: The Environmental Magazine, May-June, 2002 by Chas Offutt

Considered an endangered phenomenon, the monarch butterfly's arduous migration stretches 3,000 miles from the Rocky Mountains to Oyamel fir forests in central Mexico (see "The Monarch's Perilous Flight," In Brief, July/August 1998). The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) announced that logging in and around the Mexican sanctuaries Sierra Chincua and El Rosario are the likely root causes of an estimated 250 million frozen butterflies during a mid-January winter storm. Butterfly biologist Lincoln P. Brower says up to 80 percent of the butterflies might have died from severe weather combined with the lack of tree cover, which exposed the insects to wind, rain and cold.

The butterfly sanctuaries were set aside in 1986 and have been heavily logged until recently. According to the WWF, the Monarch Butterfly Conservation Fund needs $16 million to make payments to communities for the amount of timber they previously would have logged. CONTACT: World Wildlife Fund, (202)861-8362, www.wwf.org.mx.