Many people know what a monarch butterfly is. Their orange and black signature colors make them easy to identify. What people may not know is how fragile and how susceptible they are to change. Up to three million monarch butterflies from the U.S. and Canada travel up to 2,000 miles to a forest west of Mexico City. Their sensitivity to change was shown after rainstorms in January 2002, which led to freezing temperatures. It killed about 250 million butterflies.
Logging is also a problem. Even though there are butterfly sanctuaries, the logging edges right up to them, destorying the extra protection from wind and freezing temperatures. In the past decade, nearly half of the forests that monarchs depend on have been destroyed. The Mexican government and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) try to preserve forests to help butterflies. They have even offered to pay landowners to not cut the trees. Numbers have been shown to be the lowest for returning butterflies from Mexico in years.
There are sites to donate to, including WWF, to
help preserve the monarch butterfly population.
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| A group of butterflies gather around the plants along Lake Bemidji. |
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| A butterfly rests on a flower to suck the nectar. |
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