"California’s Monarch Butterflies Critically Low For 2nd Year"

"SAN FRANCISCO — The western monarch butterfly population wintering along California’s coast remains critically low for the second year in a row, a count by an environmental group released Thursday showed.

The count of the orange-and-black insects by the Xerces Society, a nonprofit environmental organization that focuses on the conservation of invertebrates, recorded about 29,000 butterflies in its annual survey. That’s not much different than last year’s tally, when an all-time low 27,000 monarchs were counted.

“We had hoped that the western monarch population would have rebounded at least modestly, but unfortunately it has not,” said Emma Pelton, a monarch conservation expert with the Xerces Society."

Olga R. Rodriguez reports for the Associated Press January 23, 2020.

SEE ALSO:

"Monarch Butterfly Activist Missing in Mexican Cartel Country" (Daily Beast)

Source: AP, 01/24/2020