Angelica Enciso L.
Newspaper La Jornada
Wednesday, May 25, 2022, p. 13
The presence of monarch butterfly specimens in the fir forests of Michoacán and the state of Mexico grew 35 percent in the recent season, since they occupied 2.84 hectares of forest, compared to the 2.10 reported the previous season. In 29 years of monitoring the arrival of this species in the national territory, this figure is very far from the 18 hectares that the Lepidoptera occupied in the 1996-1997 cycle.
This slight increase was due to the early repopulation of butterflies in the southern United States, informed the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (Conanp) and the WWF-Telmex-Telcel Foundation Alliance when presenting the annual report on the presence of the lepidoptera, which spends the winter in the Mexican forests after traveling 4 thousand kilometers from Canada.
They reported that the first arrival of the monarch butterfly was on September 13 of last year in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, and the peak of the migration occurred on October 15. They settled in 10 colonies, six in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve and four outside it.
They added that three sanctuaries were opened to visit the monarch in Michoacán (El Rosario, Sierra Chincua and Senguio) and one in the state of Mexico (in Piedra Herrada, Valle de Bravo). About 186 thousand visitors attended.
positive news
Jorge Rickards, director of WWF Mexico, pointed out that the increase in monarchs this season is positive news: It tells us that we must continue working to maintain this trend and reinforce protection measures by Mexico, the United States and Canada. Monarchs are important pollinators, and their journey favors the reproduction, with greater diversity, of flowering plants, which benefits other species in natural systems and contributes to the production of food for human consumption in productive systems.
.
Conanp reported that the largest colony, with 1.1 hectares, was registered in the El Rosario ejido, in the Sierra Campanario sanctuary, Michoacán, and the smallest colony, with 300 meters, was located in the Crescencio Morales ejido, in the same state, which reappeared after having been found previously from 2003-2004.
