Spotlight

Supported by MBF funding, Alternare’s team is starting with the summer reforestation for 2021. Along with the indigenous communities of Crescencio Morales, Francisco Serrato and Nicolás Romero, they are planning to plant approximately 23,000 trees on 20 hectares! For the past two years, Alternare has been using trays to grow seedlings in the nurseries avoiding individual plastic bags for each tree. An ecologically friendly process that is true to the three R’s of the environment: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.

         

Spring  is here and monarchs were last seen fluttering about Cerro Pelón. We are going to be spotting them up north pretty soon! Now it the time to plant milkweed and nectar-rich flowers to help them breed. Below some images of the monarchs while they were still in Mexico.

      

 

WWF-Telcel released the data on the yearly count of monarch butterflies overwintering in Mexico for the 2020-2021 season and unfortunately the population has decreased to 2.10 hectares (5.2 acres). This is 26% from last year’s count. You can access the announcement on the WWF website by clicking HERE and read a translation in English HERE.

Today, January 21, 2021, at 9:00 A.M., Osmar Ramírez Vázquez, a student of Dr. Isabel Ramírez, one of our board members, captured this amazing video of monarchs roosting and flying about in the Cerro Pelón colony.

Monarch Butterfly Fund Board members and partners will provide first-hand accounts of the return of monarchs to the Mexico wintering sites each year, and the people who study and work to save them in this Zoom webinar on

Jan 27, 2021 at 6:30 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

 Register at:

https://uwmadison.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_KEmmS0c7SSaf3syrhTCz_g

Ernest Williams, MBF Board Member and Professor of Biology Emeritus at Hamilton College will describe how the forest protects the overwintering monarchs. Alfonso Alonso, MBF Board Member and Conservation Biologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute will describe how monarchs are counted at the Mexico wintering sites. Guadalupe Del Rio, President of the conservation organization Alternare, will describe how her organization works with local communities on sustainable development and forest conservation. Hosted by MBF Board members, this webinar will be an interesting and hopeful (but realistic) account of an amazing insect and the people who care about them.

We hope to see you there!

As we reported previously, monarchs started to arrive on Mexico on late October and were seen in large groups flying around the sanctuaries and feeding in neighboring agricultural fields. By mid-November, the colonies were already established and on the last weekend of November Sierra Chincua and El Rosario sanctuaries were open to tourism. Cerro Pelón and La Mesa will not open this season.

Throughout October, personnel from the Health and Tourism Ministries, along with the Reserve’s Directorship, trained the different groups that guide visitors to avoid spreading Covid-19. Additional to the general health rules (mask-wearing, hand-sanitizing and physical distancing), during these season, small children and elder people will not be allowed to enter.  Large groups and buses will only be allowed access with an appointment and during weekdays, weekends will be set for small groups and families.