Monarchs return to Mexico

To protect the glorious monarch

Mexico invests millions to protect spectacular migratory butterflies

— Photo: AP

BEAUTY GALORE: Thousands of monarch butterflies hang from a tree branch at the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in the central Mexican town of Cerro Prieto.

CERRO PRIETO: Mexico has announced a plan to pump pesos into a monarch butterfly reserve to boost tourism and create jobs in an impoverished area where illegal logging threatens the monarch’s habitat.

The 50-million peso (about Rs. 18. 4 crores) plan will buy equipment and advertising for the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, a 50,180-hectare wooded park in Mexico’s Michoacan State, where clouds of orange- and black-winged butterflies nest each winter after flying south all the way from Canada and the U.S.

“It is possible to take care of the environment and at the same time promote development,” President Felipe Calderon said at a ceremony to celebrate the monarchs’ arrival.

Calderon’s administration has boosted efforts to protect the environment, promoting plans to combat global warming and plant 250 million trees across the country this year. But in a developing country plagued by pollution and spotty regulation, progress is slow.

Monarch butterflies have become an ecological symbol most Mexicans can rally around — they adorn licence plates in Michoacan, Calderon’s native state. The police even stand guard along some highways there, slowing cars that might hit the butterflies as they fly in swarms across the road.

Omar Vidal, director of the World Wildlife Fund’s Mexico program, applauded Calderon’s plan. “This is the longest migration of all insects, a unique phenomenon and a natural wonder and Mexico has the biggest responsibility to protect them because they come here to hibernate,” he said.

The butterfly reserve, which in addition to the funds announced Sunday receives 400 million pesos in government funding a year, is patrolled by park rangers who roam the area armed with assault rifles, searching for armed gangs of illegal loggers.

Unauthorised logging threatens to the monarch’s habitat, which requires leafy foliage to protect the insects from rain and cold.

“By even taking a single tree out near the butterfly colony, you allow heat to escape from the forest, and that then jeopardises the butterflies,” said Lincoln Brower, a Professor of Zoology at the University of Florida and Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia. Having who has studied the monarchs for 52 years, described the Michoacan nesting grounds as “the Mecca of the whole insect world.”

The monarch butterfly — found in Mexico, Canada, the U.S., most of South America and parts of Australia and New Zealand — does not appear on any endangered species list. But its disappearing habitat threatens a delicate migratory route that has spanned two continents and 2.6 million sq km for some 10,000 years.

Each September, the butterflies begin a 5,470-km journey from the forests of eastern Canada and parts of the U.S. to the central Mexican mountains. The voyage is considered an aesthetic and scientific wonder.

They return north in late March, where they breed and cycle through as many as five generations before heading south again the next year. Scientists say the monarchs are genetically programmed to return to Mexico, where they settle in the same mountains their ancestors inhabited the year before.

Territory

Sometimes, they return to the very same trees — probably because previous monarchs have marked the area in ways scientists don’t yet understand, Professor Brower said.

Progress has been made protecting the butterflies’ home in Mexico, where they have become a tourist attraction and source of pride — and where

The World Wildlife Fund and Mexican Fund for Nature Conservation reported a 48 per cent drop in illegal logging this year. “We’re gaining ground in that fight,” Mr. Calderon said. — AP

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A wild(life) adventurer

Mary Morgan , 11/04/2007

Amongst the young fliers taking to the skies in Kwahu over the weekend was a somewhat older one; Dr Torben B Larsen, 63, a Danish butterfly expert who is renowned the world over for his pioneering surveys. Indeed, he even has a butterfly named after him.

Dr Larsen is not new to flying, he says, as he reminisces about a 1930s-produced dual glider he had tried in India which "had an uncanny ability to fall like a rock," and tells me about the time he "accidentally" went parachuting when he fell from a moving aircraft on a butterfly expedition.

His wildlife exploration, and his former career as a family planning consultant, has taken him to over 80 different countries - and he is no stranger to adventure.

But Dr Larsen's presence here today is in fact one of chance; the result of a recent email exchange with the paragliding "legend" behind the Pepsi-Ferdinand Ayim Hang and Paragliding Festival, the third annual such event, which took place at Atibie in Kwahuland over the Easter weekend.

"I was in Kenya and Tanzania, investigating a mass migration of butterflies, when I received an email from Walter to say that he had spotted butterflies at a height of 3,500km when he was gliding," Dr Lawson explains. "The next email came from Ghana, and I said, 'What? Ghana? I am going to Ghana next month."" – and paragliding can be excellent way to catch high-altitude butterflies.

It is also an example of the increasingly diverse base Ghana’s newest tourist attraction might hope to attract – daredevil sportsmen alongside professional naturists, travelling volunteers alongside curious Ghanaians.

According to Dr Lawson, it might even serve to preserve some of Ghana’s rich wildlife resources: because who wants to paraglide over a slashed and burned forest?Butterfly haven

Dr Lawson is as a "specialist" should be: grey, bearded, rugged, posh but irreverent – "un-bloody-believable" he exclaimed, as the first flight of the day soared into the sky – and above all, passionate.

Who would have thought butterflies could be so cool? We had begun our discussion over breakfast and continued as we ascended the bumpy road to the top of Kwahu Ridge. Dr Lawson is going to jump, and he has his butterfly net ready to see what he can catch.

But besides the paragliding today, why Ghana? I ask a man who made his first visit here some four decades ago, and who has returned countless times since to study its forests, often with a team of volunteers in tow. Certainly, tourism planners keen to encourage more eco tourism in Ghana might be interested to know.

Dr Larsen began studying the wildlife of West Africa when he realised quite how little chronicled it was – and this remains the allure for many nature pioneers, keen to explore a place rich in species, poor in research.

The first of his many authoritative studies was a book on Kenyan butterflies in 1992. "Then I looked at the map and realised that nobody has any possibility of identifying West African butterflies," he told me. "There are millions of them sitting in museums all over the world, but they have never really been treated in any comprehensive manner."

He started in 1993 on a five-year project to write a definitive book on the butterflies of the sub-region; from Mauritania to Nigeria. The five years dragged on into 10, 12 – and the book was finally published in 2005.

During the years of that study, Ghana was an obvious place to focus – both because of its biodiversity, and because of its stability; for "logistical practicability," as Dr Lawson says. The forests of Liberia and Cote d’Ivoire may have offered a similar environment, ecology-wise; but even for a natural explorer, there must be limits.

Dr Larsen had first visited Ghana in 1967 and came back twice in the next 20 years in his role as a specialist in the development and evaluation of family planning and health programmes for the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Now, he travels to Ghana several times a year, spending a month or so every time – and he is even considering making Ghana his base for a while.

"I did 65,000km in a car that I bought for $2000 in 1993, and I’ve never had an untoward moment in Ghana."

Dr Larsen’s current interest in Ghana is in the Bobiri Butterfly sanctuary, 50km north, where he was heading later on Saturday afternoon for a reception with President John Agyekum Kufuor. He is working on a project he describes as the 2100 butterfly survey – a comparative study of some 600 species of butterfly which can currently be found in the area, and the number and variety of butterflies which remain in the year 2100.

Dr Larsen is in the process of establishing the baseline for the comparison, bringing together a "whole lot" of volunteers, he says – butterfly enthusiasts from around the world – to undertake the work.

The quantity and range of butterflies in Bobiri is quite extraordinary, he tells me, compared, for example, to the just 60 species which can be found in the whole of his native Denmark. Of the world’s 20,000 species of butterfly, 930 of them have been identified in Ghana. Expanding eco research and eco tourism

As Ghana strives to attract more nature and wildlife visitors, the reception met by Dr Larsen has always been one of welcome and support, he says, with the willing collaboration of the Wildlife Division in Ghana particularly conducive to his work.

"I was more or less adopted by the Wildlife Division," he says, which has decided to have a liberal policy on granting collection permits to all butterfly enthusiasts to facilitate their work. "If people look serious, they will get permission to collect and to export butterflies."

"I did many other places [for the West Africa study], but I used Ghana as the place where I could actually see the butterflies in their natural habitat, and I’ve spent hundreds of nights just lying on a camp bed in the forest."

For Dr Larsen, both serious and amateur interest in wildlife has increased dramatically since he has been working in the country. And now, the first Ghanaian researchers are beginning to work on butterfly projects, based out of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi.

Eco and wildlife tourism – the focus of national tourism policy – has also grown tremendously, and Dr Lawson has even been involved with improving some of the visitor facilities, working with Conservation International in the establishment of the visitor centre at Kakum National Park.

At the request of the then-director of the Wildlife Division, Dr Lawson and a company called A Brush With Nature also organised the first ecotourism tour to Ghana, for a group of 14 American butterfly collectors. "It was quite difficult then, in 1996, to find the necessary reasonable hotel accommodation;" even those which did exist, in the rural areas they visited, very rarely had electricity.

"If we were doing the same trip today, there would be no problems," he says, although more formalised training for hotel staff and receptionists would improve the experience. "You come to places that have reasonably substantive structures, but management has no idea of what should happen." Protecting our assets

There are concerns, however, that the flourishing interest in wildlife and ecotourism in Ghana might suffer if the country continues to treat its natural resources with the callous disdain many environmentalists lament.

"Of the original forest area in West Africa, only about 5 percent of that is left in really good condition" says Dr Larsen – and some of the best of this can be found in Ghana’s national parks.

In 2005, Dr Larsen was assigned by the Wildlife Division to produce a report on the butterfly species in the country’s national parks and areas that might be included in the national parks.

"The national parks are good; they have nice forests, they have certainly maintained their biodiversity of all types. But I would likes to see a little but more of the forest as formal national parks. Ghana’s forests include Global Sites of Biodiversity, but they are not being given any special treatment."

Of particular concern is the Atewa Mountain at Kyebi, and the Atewa range forest which is, "by far the most biodiverse and one of the most interesting places in Ghana." At 8,000 ft above sea level, the upland evergreen forest is actually a remnant of some conditions that were unique hundreds of thousands of years ago. "There are species up there which are found up that mountain, and then only re-found in the high mountains of Cameroon and Uganda."

But the mountain is not only rich in wildlife; it is also mineral-rich – and the two have rarely co-existed happily. Made of bauxite, the Government seems willing to open it to mining if it is viable, Dr Larsen says. "If it were to be mined, the whole forest would go completely, and I would consider that a tragedy."

He also points out that the people living in the area, including the Paramount Chief, are also "dead against it" because they say that when the mining stops, it will cause an incredible disruption to their water supplies.

Tano Orphen is a similar forest type to Atewa – but soon there could be very little of it left, Dr Lawson warns. "From what I have seen, it is really getting smashed up very badly."

This is where the paragliding festival comes in – where the passions of Walter the paraglider and Dr Larsen the naturist collide – because sports tourism really can be eco tourism as it is meant to be.

"I think it’s great because not everybody’s going to do it and it’s not even on all the time, but every little bit adds to the growing degree of tourism around Ghana. This small-scale tourism is definitely assisting in the conservation of what little forest is left. And I think that’s very very important."

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Highway shut for butterfly travel in Taiwan

aiwan is to close one lane of a major highway to protect more than a million butterflies, which cross the road on their seasonal migration.

The purple milkweed butterfly, which winters in the south of the island, passes over some 600m of motorway to reach its breeding ground in the north.

Many of the 11,500 butterflies that attempt the journey each hour do not reach safety, experts say.

Protective nets and ultra-violet lights will also be used to aid the insects.

Taiwanese officials conceded that the decision to close one lane of the road would cause some traffic congestion, but said it was a price worth paying.

"Human beings need to coexist with the other species, even if they are tiny butterflies," Lee Thay-ming, of the National Freeway Bureau, told the AFP news agency.

The migration is only one of two mass butterfly movements worldwide

Under the bridge

Each year thousands of butterflies die when turbulence generated by fast-moving cars drags them into the traffic or under the wheels of oncoming vehicles.

Ecologists hope the triple-action effort of lane closure, protective nets and ultra-violet lighting will dramatically increase the milkweed's chances of reaching the breeding ground.

The protective nets are designed to force the butterflies to fly higher, reducing the chances of them getting caught in the traffic.

Ultra-violet lighting will be used below an elevated section of road to encourage the butterflies to head beneath.

The measures are estimated to have cost $30,000 (£15,200).

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The migrating butterflies

Nivedita Ganguly

An interesting annual phenomenon under study

— Photo: K.R. Deepak

AT HOME: A migrant butterfly and a caterpillar at the biodiversity park in Visakhapatnam this past week.

VISAKHAPATNAM: The iridescent, velvety wings flutter around in swarms: the seasonal visitors are here again. For a few years now, during the period December-February, a throng of butterflies have made their appearance in pockets of Visakhapatnam district. Environmentalists and nature-lovers are monitoring the phenomenon.

"We have been observing this peculiar behaviour of the crow and tiger butterflies," says Prof. M. Rama Murty of the Dolphin Nature Club, a founder-member of the biodiversity park at the RCD Government Hospital here.

A recent study by environmental organisations showed that the "tiger" and "crow" butterflies have a tendency to migrate in large groups from the Western Ghats to the Eastern Ghats during certain periods of the year. Such arrivals have been observed also in Bangalore, Tumkur and Mysore in Karnataka; Palakkad and Kannur in Kerala; Coimbatore, Udhagamandalam, Vellore and Chennai in Tamil Nadu, and Tirupati, also in Andhra Pradesh. It has been witnessed also in some wildlife sanctuaries.

The insects migrate in clusters and for a specific period remain rooted to a spot, where they copulate. "Interestingly, migration of butterflies is different from that of birds since the ones that return are not the original butterflies," says Mr. Murty.

The long-distance migration can be attributed to a combination of climatic factors, food availability and breeding habitat preferences.

"The most obvious cause for migrations is a rapid expansion of the population of one or more species in an area leading to reduced food supply," Mr. Rama Murty says.

The migration route is yet to be determined. The groups consist of over 20 species .

The migration of the North American Monarch butterfly from Canada and northern United States to Mexico in autumn and the return journey in spring is well known. In India, larger-scale migrations occur in the Western Ghats. "In southern India, butterfly migrations have been documented in the Palni Hills and places like Assam and Rajasthan. Twenty-two species are known to migrate, travelling south in October during the rainy season," says Prudhvi Raj of the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehra Dun.

But why do the butterflies flock to only certain plants? "The males, on emerging from their pupae, lack certain chemicals essential to the process of courting females. Butterflies need pyrrolizidine alkaloids for the production of these sexual pheromones and these are obtained from plants such as Crotalaria, Heliotropium and Senecio subdiscoideus," says Mr. Raj.

Some action patterns are observed, including `mud-puddling', wherein the butterflies land on wet mud and suck salt and other minerals and nutrients from the soil.

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