Monarch butterfly numbers decline again

Drought conditions and historic wildfires lead to more decline

March 2013. Bad news again for the Monarch butterfly: Drought conditions and historic wildfires the past few years continue to decrease their numbers as they wing across Texas this spring. Worse news: milkweed plants – the only kind they need to survive – are also not in plentiful supply, says a Texas A&M University Monarch watcher.

Craig Wilson, a senior research associate in the Center for Mathematics and Science Education and a longtime butterfly enthusiast, says reports coming from Mexico where the Monarchs have their breeding grounds show their numbers are significantly down, a disturbing trend during much of the past decade.

Wilson explains “The severe drought in Texas and much of the Southwest continues to wreak havoc with the number of Monarchs. The conditions have been dry both here and in Mexico in recent years. It takes four generations of the insects to make it all of the way up to Canada, and because of lack of milkweed along the way, a lot of them just don’t make it.”

Read on:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/Monarch-butterflies-migration-2013.html