Dear ones, take out your tissues and dab your eyes. The forests are losing their wings and we are responsible.
Why? We all love butterflies. However, we are not respecting our habitat. The butterflies are not the best fliers. They rely on wind currents to help them reach their destinations. The rising temperatures are affecting forests, vegetation and Earth’s massive wind system.
The monarch butterfly is finding itself caught in their crosshairs. These butterflies arrived in California once upon a time in such large numbers, one could hear them congregate. The sound that they made after a thousand-kilometer journey from the Rocky Mountains, was like that of a rippling stream or a summer rain. We cannot hear that sound now.
You know why, because there simply are not enough of them. Then the number has reduced in the eastern population, which flies four thousand kilometers from the Rocky Mountains to the fir forests of central Mexico. These butterflies once covered forty-five acres of these forests in 1995–1996. Monarchs are so small and numerous that their population is calculated by the area they occupy. By 2003–2004 that area had fallen to 27.5 acres and in 2024–2025, they occupied just 4.42 acres.
Why has this happened? Forest loss in Mexico has been one of the major causes of decline. Herbicides for GM crops made matters worse by killing off the native milk weed that is the larval host plant for the monarch butterfly. Insecticides and climate change have affected them.
What can we do? We can respect the environment, support bio-diversity and protect Mother Earth.
Aim Hrim Klim