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LAWRENCE -- Last month, a massive winter storm moved into central Mexico, resulting in overnight lows in the mid to low 20s on the mornings of Jan. 14-16. This unusually cold weather took a catastrophic toll on the population of Monarch Butterflies that migrates to the area for the winter.
Orley "Chip" Taylor, professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and director of Monarch Watch, an educational outreach program at the University of Kansas, said the mortality rate among monarchs in central Mexico is among the largest ever witnessed.
On the two mountains were approximately 70 percent of the monarch population typically overwinters - Sierra Chincua and El Rosario - the mortality rates were 74 percent and 81 percent respectively.
"These rates of mortality are unprecedented in the known history of monarch overwintering sites," Taylor said in a statement released on the Monarch Watch Web site.
There is some hope, though, since there was such a robust overwintering population this year, Taylor said. "Had this storm occurred last season when the overwintering population was at an all-time low, it is likely that it would have taken the population many years to return to the normal levels of 60-120 million overwintering butterflies," he said.
The full text of Taylor's comments appear on the Monarch Watch Web site.
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