Award-winning photographer Jamie Rojo has been documenting monarch butterflies for more than two decades, and London's Natural History Museum recognized his latest portfolio of their migration at the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition.
As detailed by The Guardian, Rojo's haunting photos of the endangered butterflies are sparking a new wave of interest in the declining crucial pollinators, which conservationists estimate have decreased by 90% across the United States and Mexico since the 1990s.
"When I first visited the monarch sanctuary in Mexico, there were so many of them, the forest floor would be a carpet of dead monarchs up to half a metre thick and every tree was blanketed with them," Rojo told The Observer, per the Guardian. "It was extraordinary."
However, the Spanish photographer fears the stunning images of the monarchs may be a thing of the past unless the world takes action.
A combination of factors is threatening the monarchs, as the Endangered Species Coalition explains, including habitat loss, extreme weather linked to the rising global temperature, and toxic chemical pesticides. This has resulted in reduced numbers easily spotted by the human eye.
"It has become very noticeable and worrying," Rojo told The Observer, per The Guardian.
According to the Natural History Museum, the photographer hopes his work can spur the development of protected areas for the iconic monarch butterflies.
Blanca Huertas, the museum's principal curator of winged insects, also highlighted to The Guardian the importance of education surrounding monarch butterflies — one of the crucial pollinators that prevent our food supply from collapsing.
In turn, this knowledge empowers individuals to take action. For example, those who plant milkweed and other native flowering plants as part of a low-maintenance rewilded yard are combating the habitat loss threatening monarchs during their migration cycle.
"They got very weak and could not store enough energy and so they never made it to Mexico," Rojo explained when speaking to The Observer. "In a sense it was a little bit of everything that combined to do them down."
The Natural History Museum began displaying Rojo's monarch butterfly series in October, and despite the challenges facing the stunning winged creature, the photographer feels confident there's still time to turn things around.
"I still believe this is a story of hope," Rojo told The Observer, per The Guardian. "We can actually save the monarchs. This is one of the rare cases in conservation in which the citizens have something to do and that will make all the difference."
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