Spotlight

Monarchs occupied a total of 2.84 hectares this overwintering season compared to 2.10 reported in the previous one. The first record of butterflies was documented on September 13 in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila and the peak of the migration was registered in October 15. During the season, 10 colonies were recorded, six in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve and four outside of it. Karen Oberhauser, MBF board member, stated that current numbers indicate that, although this increase is hopeful, monarchs are not “out of the woods”. However,  the numbers would be even lower without the efforts of dedicated individuals throughout North America. There is still much to do to help the monarchs! Read more at: Monarchs Winter Population 21-22.

 

We are happy to announce the two winners for the 2022 Brower Awards, Salvador Huitrón, from the Autonomous University of the State of Mexico and Darene Assadia from the University of Michigan!

Salvador is going to use historical information on the monarch butterfly colonies to analyze the social and economic variables that influence their winter habitat. He will also conduct surveys to prioritize the biophysical, social, and economic variables that may affect the vulnerability of monarch overwintering sites. Rounding up this research Salvador will model potential priority overwintering areas.  MBF is happy to contribute to this effort to further improve our understanding of the monarch butterfly’s winter habitat.

Darene is going to quantify the role of the monarch’s olfactory and visual systems in locating nectar sources. Quantifying monarch perceptual ranges helps us understand how monarchs locate resources. Darene is posing several interesting experiments that will give us some insights on how vision and smell work to increase perceptual range in monarchs during foraging and whether monarch sensory cue perception changes in summer non-migrants and fall migrants. This work will be an excellent follow-up to the work conducted by past Brower awardee Libesha Anparasan.

Recently, journalist Rodrigo Caballero visited the Carpinteros indigenous community and published an article titled “Carpinteros, the Place Where Avocado Saved the Forest” (Click here for the English translation) where he tells us how the Otomi community managed to balance planting avocados and the conservation of their forests. The people from Carpinteros managed to reforest more than 40 thousand trees in 2020 and 2021 alone thanks to support from Alternare and the local governments. Undoubtedly the support that MBF provides to Alternare every year to support reforestation is not only helping communities produce organic avocados but is also yielding lots of  positive fruits and benefits!

Board member Isabel Ramirez, visted the colonies to do her research and sent us the below photographs of the monarch colonies in Sierra Chincua. The butterflies are densely clustered around the oyamels and the pines. Stunning sight for sure!

       

 

The Environmental Alliance of Georgia in collaboration with Journey North runs the Symbolic Migration program every year. This program includes the “Beyond the Mexico” book project which distributes books and provides environmental lessons to schools near the monarch sanctuaries in Mexico.  MBF is a proud supporter of this effort and is happy to share their latest video with statements from schoolchildren and teachers who participate. Click HERE to watch the video and learn more about the symbolic migration project.

The overwintering season started a bit earlier this year! Since the last days of October, hundreds of butterflies could be seen from the roads around the MBBR flying towards the forests. This spectacular arrival continued for two more weeks and ended the weekend of November 13-14 when the colonies were already established. The colonies will be officially open to tourism until November 27 in Sierra Chincua, El Rosario, and La Mesa and Cerro Pelón will remain closed. In the photo below, taken in the Monarch Reserve’s buffer zone by Isabel Ramírez, we see some monarchs on Buddleia flowers making a last stop before heading to the overwintering sites.