This year, millions of monarch butterflies migrated to Mexico for the winter season. The migration created a 10-acre carpet of black-and-orange striped winged insects in their wintering grounds, representing a notable uptick in the majestic butterflies’ numbers.

Monarch butterflies gather on trees by thousands, because of which lepidopterists count the insects on the basis of the area covered by them. The winter this year witnessed the butterflies blanket covering an area over 3.5 times greater as compared to the last season, which witnessed 2.8 acres of butterflies. The toll is also higher than 2013’s record low of 1.66 acres.

While speaking to the Associated Press, Dan Ashe, the director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service called it good news, seeing the kickstart of success. Ashe added that however, now their task is to carry forward that success.

Though, the winter count this year has shown monarch butterflies are rebounding, still they are significantly fewer as compared to just 20 years ago. In 1996, monarchs peaked, covering more than 44 acres of their Mexican wintering grounds.

Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Washington, DC-based Center for Biological Diversity, said, “The increase is certainly great news, but the bottom line is that monarchs must reach a much larger population size to be resilient to ever-increasing threats”.

The focus of the initiatives taken to boost those numbers was on a range of dangers from habitat loss to harmful pesticides.

Mexico has witnessed an uptick in illegal logging in the wintering regions of monarchs. The butterflies need the trees to make a shelter to guard the clusters of insects approaching from winter chills. Last year solely, Mexico’s reserve area where the butterflies settle every year lost over 22 acres from its buffer zone.