Incredible Journey Of The Monarch Butterflies

Monarch butterflies make an incredible journey from Canada to Mexico every year. They migrate from as far as Nova Scotia to their wintering grounds in the woodlands of Mexico.

The monarch butterflies make this incredible 3000 mile journey across the United States and are able to navigate to their wintering grounds in Mexico without ever being there before.

Millions of these butterflies make the journey every year in what is one of he most spectacular sights in the world. This natural phenomenon is being threatened because monarch numbers have been dwindling for the past fifteen years.

Monarch numbers have been on the decline because their natural breeding grounds have been under heavy attack. It takes four generations of monarchs to complete the 3000 mile journey, so along the way monarchs die off but their offspring pick up the journey where the prior generation left off.

The problem is monarch caterpillars naturally feed on milkweed and milkweed is being destroyed by the herbicides used to protect GMO crops like corn and soybean.

Monarch numbers have been on the steady decline for the last fifteen and have declined sharply in the last few years. During the 2013-2014 winter the monarchs covered 0.67 hectares in Mexico’s forests, and this was a drop in coverage of 44 percent from the 2012 winter.

The most alarming thing is the 2013-2014 coverage was 10 times lower than the normal butterfly coverage from 1994-2014 which covered 6.39 hectares.