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In the past year, the eastern population of monarch butterflies that overwinters in Mexico boosted the area it occupies during hibernation by 144 percent, as revealed by an annual survey performed by the World Wildlife Fund-Mexico and partner organizations.
The survey measures the area monarchs occupy because of the difficulty in counting individual butterflies. This year monarchs took up almost 15 acres of forest, up from about six acres last year, making it the largest increase in 12 years, according to a statement.
Favorable weather contributed to the population’s uptick with warm temperatures that helped migrations, according The San Francisco Chronicle. “This was a Cinderella year,” Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Arizona, tells the Chronicle.
Populations fluctuate from year to year and experts caution that these good numbers may not repeat in years to come. The butterflies are also still ...
