Source: Forbes
According to the Mexican government, the Monarchs occupied only 10 acres of forest during the 2016-2017 migration season, a significant decrease from the 55-acre population in 1996. Researchers state that the Monarch population is at approximately 78 million, compared the 1 billion that existed twenty years ago.
The Carlos Slim Foundation has been collaborating with the World Wildlife Fund to come up with strategies that will prevent the Monarch butterflies from dying. The foundation has also found that the main threats to the butterflies are the use of milkweed in pesticides, illegal lodging in Mexico’s forests, and extreme weather conditions in the U.S. and Canada, the countries where the butterflies migrate from.
Read full story at: Forbes