Saving The Butterfly Forest

February 11, 2021 4:16 AM

Photographer Brendan George Ko captures monarch butterflies at their southernmost migration stop in central Mexico, and the environmental destruction and violence that threaten the insects’ numbers, with text by Carolyn Kormann (The New Yorker)
posted by adrianhon (6 comments total)

Watching the butterflies in the forest like this is just magical. I would love to visit, if I could do it responsibly.

It makes me really sad that they may not be around much longer - and even more determined to actually plant some milkweed this year for them!
posted by needlegrrl at 6:06 AM on February 11, 2021

I’ve seen monarchs in masses in California. They’re individually so beautiful, but pretty much any insect in biomass larger than a pig makes my skin crawl. (Ditto ladybugs, here in NC.)
posted by anshuman at 7:17 AM on February 11, 2021

(Still, thanks for the link. Monarchs were down 90% when I lived in California (we’ve killed all their milkweed) - it makes me sad.)
posted by anshuman at 7:20 AM on February 11, 2021

In my 50 year lifetime, I remember as a kid seeing milkweed everywhere in Chicago; in abandoned lots, along traintracks, in people's unmanicured front yards. Then, some time in the '80s it was eradicated. Just these last few (8-10) years I've started seeing it in the "wild" again, along with people's butterfly/pollinator plantings.

I work in a fancy-pant$ garden center, and we sell milkweed perennials—several varieties—for around $10 per young-adult sized plant! People have been trying to get it to grow again, but I guess it's not as easy as just letting the fluff fly around anymore. Perhaps the pesticides are still in the soil from the early 80s? I do not know for sure, but I have started to see it pop up along train tracks and such.

We are a weird species.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:52 AM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

Those pictures are amazing! I have never seen so many butterflies together before and in the pictures where they were covering the branches it took me a while to realize that they weren't leaves but were in fact Monarchs.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:01 PM on February 11, 2021

I live beside a monarch overwintering site. Ten years ago there were many millions, last year around five thousand, and this year just five hundred. It's so sad. This may be the end for this site, and it's not really better anywhere else.
posted by anadem at 8:02 PM on February 11, 2021 [2 favorites]