MEXICO CITY — The stunning annual migration of millions of monarch butterflies to spend the winter in Mexico is in danger of disappearing, experts said Wednesday.
A report blamed the displacement of milkweed — on which the species feeds — on genetically modified crops and urban sprawl in the United States, extreme weather trends and the reduction of the butterflies’ habitat in Mexico due to illegal logging of the trees they depend on for shelter.
After steady declines in the previous three years, the black-and-orange butterflies now cover only 1.65 acres in the pine and fir forests west of Mexico City, compared with 2.93 acres last year, said the report, released by the World Wildlife Fund, Mexico’s Environment Department and the Natural Protected Areas Commission. The butterflies covered more than 44.5 acres at their recorded peak in 1996.
It’s unclear what would happen to the monarchs were they no longer to make the annual trek to Mexico, the world’s biggest migration of monarch butterflies and the second-largest insect migration.
