Local butterfly found in Mexico

Readers may recall stories in the local press about monarch butterflies released by students and teachers at Brighton Public School.

They area not the only ones monitoring and assisting the insects.

A butterfly tagged and released under the direction of Northumberland naturalist, Audrey Wilson, and Peter Brotherhood was found and identified in a fir forest, northwest of Mexico City. It was a female, tagged with 21 other monarchs on Sept 8, 2007 at Presqu’ile.

Ms Wilson was excited about this find because less then .5 of 1 per cent are usually recovered after their flight of 4,000 km.

Local people in Mexico are paid 500 pesos or the equivalent of $3.75 US by Monarch Watch for each recovered tagged monarch. At this remote, mountainous location in Mexico, the bodies of dead monarchs litter the forest floor to a depth of many centimeters. It is uncertain whether the monarch was found dead or alive. Scientists are continuing to learn more about this migration process through their tagging program.

Ms Wilson was a member of a team of amateur and professional naturalists in the 1960 and 70’s who discovered where the monarch wintered. In her lifetime, she has tagged literally thousands of monarchs but only a few tags from México have ever been returned.