MEXICO CITY — Satellite photographs show illegal loggers have clear-cut large swathes of trees in the heart of a monarch butterfly reserve in Mexico, threatening the insects’ habitat, a researcher said Monday.
The images show that loggers have illegally cut down 1,100 acres of trees since 2004 in the core of a wooded park in Michoacan state where clouds of orange- and black- winged butterflies nest each winter, said Lincoln Brower, a professor emeritus of biology at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, who has studied the monarchs for 52 years.
“The butterfly area can’t survive if this kind of logging continues,” said Brower, who also directs the preservation group that paid for the images.
Mexico’s environmental protection agency, Profepa, didn’t return several phone messages seeking comment Monday.
