Monarch Butterflies

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The Season's First Report from Estela Romero
English | Español

February 6, 2014

Dear Friends,

I have a heavy heart as I write this year's first letter as your local reporter from Mexico. Here at the monarch overwintering region, we have heard the disappointing news about the monarch population and we share the deep concern of you, my friends, in the U.S. and Canada. In the days and weeks ahead, I know we will all be searching for ways to help the monarchs return to their healthy number.

As you know, the butterflies arrived here exactly three months ago, in early November. Having heard predictions about the low number of butterflies I wanted to visit the sanctuaries so I could share my impressions with you. I decided to go in December, about the same time scientists were measuring all of the colonies.

First I went first El Rosario Sanctuary because it is usually the biggest. My guide led me to the core of the sanctuary, where the main concentration is. Once there, he told me they estimated around 100* trees full like the ones I show in the photos. I felt relieved at seeing the trees crowded as you can observe! To me, there seemed to be as many butterflies as last year!

The official results are here now and they match my impression. The El Rosario colony is nearly as big this year (.52 hectares) as last year (.62 hectares).

When I went to the Sierra Chincua Sanctuary, I felt exactly the contrary emotion to some hours before in El Rosario. After a 30-40 minute walk to the colony, my heart was sinking. It was dramatic to see ONLY 6 TREES held clusters of monarchs—and only ONE SMALL TREE was totally covered with butterflies. I could not even speak. This sanctuary, one of the most grand in past years, hardly exists.

Sadly, my observations match the official estimate. The colony at Chincua is only .02 hectares, which equals about 1 million butterflies. Three years ago this beautiful site has had .44 hectares—over 20 million monarchs!

Please know that we will join with you—friends in the United States and Canada—to find ways to protect the monarchs in each of our three countries. While the monarchs are here I am hopeful and looking forward to sharing the perspective from Mexico with you.

Until next week,

Estela Romero
Local Reporter
Angangueo, Michocán, México

* Correction: The count was originally reported in error as 1,000 trees and corrected to 100 trees in December 2014.