Researchers in Mexico said this week there is a tentative sign of hope for the mass migration of monarch butterflies, whose numbers dropped last year to their lowest level ever.
The head of Mexico's nature reserves, Luis Fueyo, said the first butterflies have been seen entering Mexico earlier than usual this year, according to the Associated Press.
Fueyo added that it is too early to know if butterfly numbers will rebound in 2014 or not from a number of sharp drops, but said "this premature presence could be the prelude to an increase in the migration."
The first butterflies were sighted in the northern border state of Coahuila. Most normally arrive in October from the United States and Canada, where they spend the summer.
"This year, we are seeing them present in Mexican territory earlier than usual," Fueyo said.
They usually settle in mountaintop forests by November where they spend the winter. Fueyo said that authorities will wait to count after the butterflies have settled in completely, something that usually takes place in December.
The United States and Canada agreed in February to form working groups on the conservation of Monarch butterflies. In 2013, monarch butterflies covered just 1.65 acres in the pine and fir forests west of Mexico City, down from more than 44.5 acres at their peak in 1996.
The butterflies are counted by the area they cover since they clump together, according to the Associated Press.
The head of international affairs for Mexico's Environment Department, Enrique Lendo Fuentes, said the three nations "will probably have a joint plan of action before the end of November."
The plan would be to create a corridor of milkweed-friendly areas along the entire three-nation migratory route. This is important since the butterfly has to reproduce along the way.
Mexico has already taken a number of steps to help the butterflies, like creating a network of observers to track monarchs from the time they enter the country in order to identify milkweed patches that the butterflies might use along their way to their mountain wintering grounds, according to AP.
"We are alarmed, because we don't yet what is going to happen" with butterflies, whose migration - but not the existence of the species - is consider at risk of disappearing," said Mexican writer and environmentalist Homero Aridijis, according to AP. "We don't know what size population is going to come" to Mexico, "so we are a little alarmed."
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