Monarchs At Potential 50-60 Percent Decline

I read this article today in the Ft. Worth Star Telegram.  One again, it doesn’t sound good.

Monarch butterflies, hit hard by strong storms at their winter home in Mexico, have dwindled to their lowest population levels in decades as they begin to return to Texas on their springtime flight back to the United States and Canada.

The monarch loss is estimated at 50 to 60 percent and means that the breeding population flying northward is expected to be the smallest since the Mexican overwintering colonies were discovered in 1975, said Chip Taylor, a professor of entomology and director of Monarch Watch at the University of Kansas.

“I think it is very clear that the butterflies lost more than half of the population,” Taylor said. “I’m hoping it wasn’t as high as 70 or 80 percent. We’ve never seen it this bad before.”

Related posts:

1. Wintering Monarchs Are Struggling. Not Looking Good
2. Where Are The Monarchs?
3. Bad News For Monarch Butterflies