Wildlife

Monarch Gains

The Mexican forest reserve where millions of monarch butterflies spend the winter saw deforestation drop by 57 percent this year compared to 2017, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) reported.

“The forest’s degradation has dropped due to a decrease in large-scale illegal logging operations, the end of the damages caused by the 2016 storms and the absence of weather events,” said Jorge Rickards, head of WWF Mexico.

But small-scale illegal logging in the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve saw a slight rise, with about 3.5 acres of forest lost.