MEXICO CITY: Communal farmers and butterfly guides are anticipating a rebound in monarch butterflies and tourist numbers at their wintering grounds in central Mexico after a poor year for both last year.
Experts say it is too early to calculate the number of monarchs who migrate from the US and Canada to the forests west of the capital of Mexico each year. A formal survey will be conducted in December.
But the butterflies have come to represent an important source of income for farmers who have pine and pine forests where monarchs cling to the trees. Already this year, some orange and black monarchs have settled in the trees for the winter.
After a devastating drop in tourism due to the pandemic last year and a 26% drop in butterflies numbers, 49-year-old farmer and tourist guide Silvestre de Jes Cruz is hoping for a better year for both this year.
Last year was a bit tough, as there were very few people. But this year is going to be good, said de Jes Cruz. A lot of communal farming families depend on it, said the 21-year-old veteran of guide work, adding that not only do we guide, but the people there also sell food in the parking lot. Lots of people
Off-season butterflies arrive in November and leave around March. De Jes Cruz plants corn and oats on a parcel of his small farm.
But those crops don’t provide much cash. Cash income comes from tourism, and due to the coronavirus pandemic, only 40,000 people visited the dozen or so butterfly wintering grounds on top of individual mountains last year, down from 80,000 in previous years.
There are already some tourists coming this year.
Yoga-loving Mexico City resident Martha Echevera found the serenity of the El Rosario Reserve to be the main attraction. Visitors are encouraged to remain silent so as not to disturb the resting butterflies, and this makes a scene so serene that you can then hear the bow and the sound of the wind.
I like the silence it brings in you, said Echevera.
De Jes Cruz explains that guides are taking extra precautions because of the pandemic, such as requiring masks and having visitors’ temperatures taken before going inside.
This poses some special challenges, given that tourists must hike several hundred meters (yards) of steep trails to get to over-protected areas where butterflies collide, in an already elevated area.
Ricardo Rodriguez, a tourist from the state of Puebla, managed to reach the top without any problems despite not exercising regularly, but said he wanted a little more space to take off his mask from time to time.
The face mask, well, it’s there to protect everyone, but you lack air in some parts of the climb, and so the hike up can be better planned, Rodriguez said. They could have given us a little more space, so you could take it off for a while and get more oxygen.
Due to myriad factors, the emperor’s numbers declined in the last year. Experts say drought, severe weather and especially the loss of the milkweed’s habitat where monarchs lay their eggs, as well as pesticide and herbicide use, and climate change, all pose a threat to the species’ migration.
Illegal logging and loss of tree cover due to disease, drought and storms are also damaging the reserves.
Gloria Tavera, regional director of the National Council on Protected Areas, said it was too early to say whether there would be an increase in the number of butterflies or tourists this year.
It would be risky to say so. “We will not know till December, once we inspect all the (butterfly) colonies,” Tavera said. As for the return of tourists, she says, let’s hope.”
Disclaimer: This post has been self-published from the agency feed without modification and has not been reviewed by an editor
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