On Wednesday, prosecutors in western Mexico claimed to have discovered eight bodies with bullet wounds.
The remains were discovered on Wednesday in the Michoacan state’s Tuzantla Township, close to the monarch butterfly’s wintering habitat.
Shell casings were reportedly discovered at the location, and Michoacan state prosecutors claimed they were looking into the circumstances behind the deaths.
They said that autopsies were being done on the corpses.
There was no apparent evidence that the deaths had anything to do with the monarch butterfly refuge.
Michoacan has been torn apart for years by brutal turf warfare between drug organisations.
Every year, monarch butterflies travel from the United States and Canada to the mountainous pine and fir woods west of Mexico City to spend the winter there.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature warned last month that the butterflies, famous for their vivid orange and spotted wings that light the sky gloriously on a roughly 2,500-mile trek every year, are “closer to the verge” of extinction.
Depending on the assessment technique, the population has decreased by 22% to 72% during the last ten years, according to the IUCN.