Tagging sheds light on monarch butterfly (Reuters/CNN) {habitat threatened}

[eppur_se_muova]

GRAPEVINE, Texas (Reuters) -- It is a delicate process but for Gayle Hall it is a labor of love: tagging monarch butterflies as part of a program to monitor the movements of one of nature's most celebrated migrants.

"I've tagged 580 monarchs for release today." she said as she held one of the insects gently in her hand, the tiny tag a clear white circle standing out from the intricate orange, black and white of its wing.

Hall's butterflies were released at an annual festival in the Texas city of Grapevine that honors the monarchs, famed for their overland migrations from Canada to Mexico and back again.
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The populations which winter at several sites west of Mexico City are the benchmark for monarch numbers and they are counted by the hectares they cover. Each hectare (2.47 acres) is estimated to hold between 25 to 75 million monarchs.
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"The long-term outlook for the monarchs is not good," he said, pointing to illegal logging in Mexico and urban development in the United States -- two forces that were eating away at its habitat. Climate change linked to greenhouse gas emissions could well be another threat.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/10/25/monarchs.tagging.reut/index.html