Scientists Predict a Bad Year for the Monarch Butterfly
26 April 2010
Photo: AP
A monarch butterfly
BOB DOUGHTY: This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS, in VOA Special English. I’m Bob Doughty.
STEVE EMBER: And I’m Steve Ember. This week, we will tell about North America’s monarch butterfly. We will tell about a British investigation of information stolen from climate researchers. And, we will tell about an honor for the largest eye care provider in the world.
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Monarch Butterflies
BOB DOUGHTY: Millions of monarch butterflies escape cold weather in North America by flying to the mountains of Mexico every winter. Many people come to see the butterflies in the forests of Mexico’s Michoacan State. The beautiful orange and black insects return to the same area each year. They travel up to four thousand eight hundred kilometers, from as far away as Canada.
In the spring, the female monarchs leave Mexico and fly as far north as the American state of Kansas. There they leave their eggs on milkweed plants, with the next generation of monarchs appearing a short time later.
But this year, experts say the butterfly population has dropped by as much as fifty percent. Chip Taylor is director of the monarch Watch program at the University of Kansas. He says fewer monarchs are returning this year than any other year he has witnessed.
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