Migratory Species: 15 Migratory Animals And The Reasons For Their Reckless Migration

Migratory species know no borders. Some of these animals are amazing titanic voyagers. But there are 15 migratory animals, which are considered one of the main daredevils of migration according to ecology: form and extreme conditions of their journey.

Migratory species as valuable in wildlife as they are vulnerable

Migrating animals fulfill irreplaceable functions at the heart of ecosystems. They are the first indicators of ecological change, revealing climate changes and pollution levels. For many animals, they are the indispensable source of food. Many of them have spiritual and cultural importance and promote ecotourism. Animal migration also provides valuable ecosystem services. They play an active role as seed dispensers and as efficient plant pollinators.

However, depending on the types of animal migration and their way of life makes them especially vulnerable to human activities.

They require a wide diversity of habitats, which are often fragile. Species migration is hindered by many obstacles: dams, power lines, wind farms, fences, roads, railways. Added to these threats are accidental catches, poaching and illegal fishing, pollution, desertification, invasive species and, of course, climate change.

As a result, many animals that migrate to Mexico are no longer seen in large numbers.

1. The jaguar: hunted hunter

Each jaguar has its own territory. The territory of the male jaguar doubles that of the female. To mark a territory, this feline leaves marks of claws, urine or droppings. Fights between jaguars "migrants by nature" are possible to protect their territory.

The female jaguar can mate after two or three years. The male jaguar will reproduce a little later, at the age of three or four years. Gestation takes between 91 and 111 days. Litters comprise between two and four pups.

The jaguar is a carnivore. It chooses its food from more than 87 species, which allows it to have a very varied diet. In fact, it can eat foxes, alligators, frogs, monkeys, or even turtles. It generally hunts at night, also at dawn and late afternoon. Within Mexico it is classified within the migration of animals at risk of extinction and as of 1987 its hunting has been prohibited.

The migration of the jaguar does not stop its possible extinction

The decline is due in part to hunting. In the 1960s, more than 15,000 jaguar skins were sold each year. In addition, deforestation and tropical cyclones have accentuated this phenomenon.

2. The lynx: wild or pet?

With its characteristic tufts of ears, the Eurasian lynx or European lynx (Lynx lynx) is the largest indigenous land predator after the grizzly bear and the wolf, and it is just as rare.

It is said that this bobcat can hear a mouse at a distance of 50 meters. However, hunting farm animals was the bane of the cunning feline in recent centuries. He was mercilessly exterminated. Currently, the few reintroduced lynxes are mostly victims of smuggling and life in captivity.

The Lynx rufus is a wild cat belonging to the six types of felines existing in Mexican territory. According to Hall 1981, the feline species is historically distributed in a border area between the US and Oaxaca.

The United States Fish and Game Service included this subspecies of Mexican feline Lynx rufus escuinapae on the list of animals threatened with extinction and is included in CITES Appendix II.

3. The Asian elephant: a cornered giant

Classified as one of the endangered migratory animals on the IUCN Red List, the Asian elephant is threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation; as well as illegal killing for ivory and other products, such as fur. What has encouraged poaching to meet the growing demand for elephant skin jewelry.

The Asian elephant population is now estimated at 40,000 individuals, after a 50% decline in the last 75 years.

Although India is home to 60% of Asia's elephants, some migrating animals regularly cross the borders of neighboring states such as Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar and Nepal; where they face various threats.

4. Disappearance of the giraffe: long migratory misery

Like elephants, rhinos and gorillas, giraffes are in danger of extinction. Poachers hunt the tallest animal in the world. To take advantage of the meat. And the brain, according to superstition, cures AIDS. Other enemies of the giraffe are lions, leopards and hyenas. Exposed to constant threat, giraffes allow themselves only 30 minutes of sleep a day.

5. The Mexican gray wolf: the tale of the bad wolf in an endangered migratory species

The eagerness of these animals that migrate long distances to capture farm animals, became their downfall. The Mexican gray wolf, though once numbering in the thousands, these wolves were wiped out in the United States in the mid-1970s, and only a handful remain in zoos.

6. Whale shark: hunted for its fins and meat

A sea giant hunted for its fins and meat. The giant shark, up to twelve meters long, has its mouth open in search of plankton, fish and water from eight to 15 degrees cold. It is unprotected because, despite its size, it ends up in the net as bycatch when other marine animals are caught or specifically hunted: Its fins and meat are considered a delicacy in China.

7. Sea turtles: migratory animals and artists of survival

Sea turtles are 250 million years old in their shell, but the distances they can travel have not yet been investigated. Apparently, during these animal migrations, mating takes place in the open sea. To lay their eggs, the females row to the beach.

Here they are hunted and their eggs stolen. In the water, both the “90% missing” leatherback turtles, the “critically endangered” hawksbill turtle, the “endangered” green turtle, the loggerhead, the goffina turtle, the Kemp’s ridley turtle “main species of the Gulf de México”, among others, end up as accidental captures in the traps or die in plastics that they thought were jellyfish.

8. Gray whale: mysterious and epic traveler

These are baleen whales and feed on a variety of small invertebrates, especially amphipods (tiny shrimp), they are known for epic migrations between their feeding grounds in the Arctic and the nursery lagoons in Mexico's Baja California Peninsula, a migration route that takes them very close to land and makes them easy to see from shore almost anywhere on the West Coast.

As of 2019, an alarming number of dead gray whales were observed on beaches and floating offshore throughout their habitat, from Mexico to Alaska. There were so many whales that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) defined as “unusual”. this death of the gray giants.

Although the cause of the current gray whale EMU is still unknown, the researchers believe it is most likely due to starvation due to a lack of suitable prey in the whales' Arctic feeding grounds.

9. Devil Manta or giant manta ray: the first threatened manta ray

The giant manta becomes the first manta ray listed as an endangered species. This gentle sea giant is having a hard time coping with intensifying anthropogenic pressures around the world.

The relentless and growing demand for their body parts has fueled existing and emerging fisheries; as they are sought out for their gill plates, which they use to filter zooplankton from the water column. The relatively new Asia-based trade appears to be affecting the giant manta more than other manta species, as unsustainable harvesting is decimating their populations worldwide.

10. Eel: animals on the move, in extinction and on the menu

Until the 1950s, the European eel (Anguilla anguilla) was a cheap, nutritious, and readily available food source. Britain's largest rivers used to shimmer silver with spring tides as young 'glass eels' surged upstream in their hundreds of millions.

Popular fish in Hong Kong supermarkets

In one study, researchers found European eels, one of the endangered and normally protected migratory species, on store shelves in Hong Kong. Their study casts doubt on the effectiveness of measures against illegal wildlife trade.

Although the threats to this species are many, poaching and the associated wildlife trade are some of the most significant. And the measures taken to combat the phenomenon are largely inadequate. This is confirmed by a novel study published in the journal Science Advances.

Illegal traffic of more than 300 million eels?

Like other migratory animals, this fish suffers from its great popularity in East Asia and, in particular, in Japan. The region is home to its own species, the Japanese eel (Anguilla japonica), but overexploitation combined with other threats has led to drastic declines in populations, which has also led to a recourse to related species, including A. anguilla.

11. Short-tailed Hummingbird (Selasphorus platycercus): the little migrant

In the cold season, hummingbirds are the immigrant species that can fly up to 800 kilometers in search of warmer places.

This tiny and precious bird is cataloged as the smallest of birds. When summer arrives, some of these populations begin to reproduce in the western United States and before winter they migrate to different central and southern regions of Mexico. It is common to see them foraging in our windows or on the terrace.

The flight of this specimen is so complex that it needs enough energy, coming from hundreds of flowers that it visits daily. As a reward, the hummingbird provides pollination work.

12. The red-headed duck: wears the world migration crown

The head ducks are also among the migratory birds of Mexico and the best known in the world. Red-crowned teal breed in northwestern North America within ponds, swamps, and lakes, before migrating by the thousands to lagoons off the coast of Mexico and the Caribbean for the winter.

When the male duck leaves his mate in summer, he undertakes a flight of hundreds of kilometers to settle in extensive aquatic areas where he molts. The main migration of animals takes place in autumn and spring.

13. The white pelican: imposing bird that migrates by day and in flocks

The pelican is considered one of the largest North American birds, whose wings can reach up to three meters, and despite the fact that many do not know it, it is a migratory species that travels thousands of kilometers leaving Canada, passing through the United States to Mexico. .

Breeding birds from the northern plains migrate southeast and southwest in search of coastal areas.

They usually reach the warmest bodies of water, in Jalisco: Laguna de Cajititlán and Lake Chapala, in Michoacán: Petatán Island, while escaping the cold of November and April.

14. Yellow Warbler Have you ever seen it?

On June 24, 2017, scientists in New York captured a yellow warbler with a ring on its leg. They discovered that she had been ringed in Colombia on April 13. This little animal is one of the best examples of animal migration, since, in two and a half months, it had traveled 3,764 kilometers.

The other name of this bird is mangrove canary, and it usually reproduces in a large part of North American lands. It then migrates through the Mexican sky to northern South America during nightly voyages in August.

This small bird with a cheerful song travels an average of 88 kilometers per night and flies along the coast, during its seasonal migration, where it is common in Tabasco and the Yucatan Peninsula.

15. Monarch Butterfly: less than 1 gram flying more than 3000 km

Monarch butterflies are very special migratory animals. Weighing less than a gram, these ambitious invertebrates participate in the legendary migration of more than 3,000 kilometers from Mexico to Canada.

Why does the monarch butterfly migrate?

The monarch is an insect whose pollinating role makes an important contribution to health and vital reserve of the planet. Feeding on nectar, it pollinates a wide variety of wild flowers. Visit a variety of colorful flowers that grow in clusters.

This colorful flying species and its ecological migration is also an indispensable food resource for small animals, birds, and other insects. Surprisingly, most "monarchs" live only a few weeks.

However, the population that emerges in late summer and early fall is distinguished by being born to travel; they can survive eight to nine months to complete their long migratory journey. The researchers suspect that the monarch can sense when it's time for the long journey, guided by the change in weather and the location of the sun.

Unfortunately, their species could become extinct for various reasons. Although monarchs feed on the nectar of many flowers, they only lay their eggs on certain types of milkweed plants. Unfortunately, milkweeds have declined dramatically, causing a decline in butterfly breeding and monarch populations.

Its biggest threat is climate change. Especially in the last decade.

Why do migratory animals travel so many kilometers? what animals migrate

From the gray whale to the monarch butterfly, the migration of animals is driven by their need to follow well-defined routes in search of food or a breeding ground.

Forced by climate change: Many birds, fish, and mammals have become migratory species that travel miles across continents and oceans; trying to survive in areas with a better climate. In some cases, species have been doing this for tens of millions of years.

It seems that this behavior is something instinctive in these species, and it is worth remembering that migrations are linked to certain events to meet different objectives, but the common denominator of all these migrations is the main objective of all forms of life: survival.

The 3 basic objectives of migrations

It could be argued that the migration of animals pursues three fundamental objectives and that they would be these:

The differences in temperature between the different seasons of the year

This is perhaps the best known reason of all. Species migrate due to these temperature changes, which are very low in winter and, conversely, very high in summer. Thus, they move to get away and ensure their ability to survive in other regions during these extreme periods.

Breeding and foraging

This is less obvious, but many animals are forced to move away from their usual habitat to mate safely or to find food in other areas where there is less competition.

Avoid predators

Again, not the first reason that comes to mind, but it makes sense. There are migrating animals that move away from areas where they feel threatened by other species, looking for new refuges to protect themselves.

Why do butterflies migrate?

Many butterflies that summer in temperate North America cannot survive northern winters. Every year, when the weather gets warmer, butterflies from Mexico and the southern United States fly north to repopulate these regions.

Of the 20,000 species of butterflies in the world, in Mexico there are about 2,000 species. As you go north, towards Canada, the number decreases, while as you go south, towards Mexico, the number increases considerably.

Urban sprawl: blessing for humans, curse for animals

Roads, highways, bridges and roads are built by and for people. They connect. Wild animals, on the other hand, are isolated by urban sprawl. Therefore, animal protection organizations in solidarity with other species, demand that their needs be taken into account; in new infrastructure construction and repair measures. Green bridges as corridors for four-legged friends can protect animals and people.

Until now, there are migratory animals that do not have any biotope that works effectively, but there are the first intentions to create such a system. Since migratory species do not care about borders, it is urgent that countries work together to put in place effective conservation measures.