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Destination reached.
The number of Monarch butterflies that reached wintering grounds in Mexico has
rebounded 69 percent from last year's lowest-on-record levels, but their numbers remain very low, according to the World Wildlife Fund.
Last year, the Monarchs covered only 1.65 acres (0.67 hectares), the smallest area since record-keeping began in 1993.
This year, the butterflies rebounded, to cover 2.79 acres (1.13 hectares), according to a formal census by Mexican environmental authorities and scientists released Tuesday.
The orange-and-black butterflies are suffering from loss of milkweed habitat in the United States, illegal logging in Mexico and climate change. Each year, the butterflies make a migration from Canada to Mexico and find the same pine and fir forests to spend the winter, even though no butterfly lives to make the round trip.
"Of course it is good news that the forest area occupied by Monarchs this season increased," said Omar Vidal, head of the World Wildlife Fund in Mexico. "But let's be crystal clear, 1.13 hectares is very, very low, and
it is still the second-smallest forest surface occupied by this butterfly in 22 years of monitoring."
At their peak in 1996, the Monarchs covered more than 44.5 acres (18 hectares) in the mountains west of Mexico City.
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