The monarch butterfly’s annual migration from southern Canada to central Mexico is in full swing, with the first sighting confirmed in the border state of Coahuila last week.
Linabeth Flores with the Mexican NGO Profauna confirmed, “We can now officially say that the migration is here.”
The monarch butterflies undertake a perilous southward migration each year from Canada, through the United States, and to Mexico starting in late August to reach their winter resting spot in the pine forests of Michoacán before the bacchanalian breeding season. New generations then migrate north to the Canadian Prairies for spring and summer.
Sightings so far have been concentrated in the cities of Acuña, Múzquiz, Monclova and Cuatro Ciénegas and are expected to increase in the coming days. At the Higher Technological Institute of Múzquiz, several monarchs were spotted feeding on polocote (Mexican sunflower) and pomegranate blossoms.
Before this year’s migration began, two dozen monarch butterflies were tagged with toothpick-sized radio transmitters in Winnipeg, Canada. The practice of tagging butterflies with tracking devices is common among conservation groups in Mexico, Canada and the United States, as it provides valuable information for the protection of the monarch population, which is endangered by climate change and habitat loss.
The first butterfly tagged in Winnipeg, known by the identifier MB26011, has already crossed the Mexican border, just five weeks after leaving Canada.
“She’s done about 2,300 kilometers in about 40 days,” said Laura Burns, the conservation program manager at the Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg. “It’s really incredible.”
Conservation researchers and members of the public can track the butterflies’ movements on the Project Monarch app.
Peak migration should occur within the next week, with most monarchs reaching overwintering sites in Michoacán and México state in early November. Profauna has asked the public to share photos and reports of the butterflies to help identify flight routes and locate the sites they use to rest and feed during their passage through Coahuila.
The eastern monarch population has fallen by an estimated 80% to 90% since the 1990s, although the number of butterflies in central Mexico this spring was around 64% higher than in the previous season, according to figures from Mexico’s Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat) and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
With reports from El Horizonte and CBC
The post First migrating monarchs are spotted in Coahuila appeared first on Mexico News Daily