Mexicans hope for recovery of monarch butterflies

Communal farmers and butterfly guides are hoping for a rebound in the number of monarch butterflies _ and tourists _ at their wintering grounds in central Mexico, after a bad year for both last year

MEXICO CITY -- Communal farmers and butterfly guides are hoping for a rebound in the number of monarch butterflies — and tourists — at their wintering grounds in central Mexico after a bad year for both last year.

Experts say it is too early to calculate the number of monarchs, which migrate from the U.S. and Canada each year to forests west of Mexico’s capital. A formal survey will be carried out in December.

But the butterflies have come to represent an important source of income for the farmers who own much of the pine and fir forest where the monarchs clump together in trees. Already this year, some of the orange-and-black monarchs have settled into trees for the winter.

After a devastating drop in tourism because of the pandemic last year, and a 26% drop in the number of butterflies, farmer and tourist guide Silvestre de Jesús Cruz, 49, is pinning his hopes on a better year for both this year.