Buying butterfly pupa

[Susie]

I am sure this has been covered before but I am not sure of the answer. If I buy some butterfly pupa of an exotic species which isn't likely to be able to survive inthe UK to form a colony and confuse everyone is it okay to release it as an adult?

[Padfield]

No criticism intended, Susie, just a sincere question: why would you want to do this?

Guy

[Susie]

No criticism taken, Guy. I have seen European Swallowtail pupas for sale and I would love to see some of these beautiful butterflies again and, even better, see them close up where I can watch them hatch and maybe keep them for a while. I am sure I don't have to explain to anyone on here what a kick I get just from watching butterflies. The problem I have is what to do with them in the end, I would hate to watch them die and I would love to think they could have a little bit of freedom. I don't want to introduce something which already exists in the area because it might interbreed and/or carry disease and cause problems for the resident colonies.

[Dave McCormick]

Well, I would not go and release non naticve butterflies to the cpountryside. When I had commas I bred from some I got at wwb (worldwide butterflies) I was told by local BC members, NOT to release them as they are probably not native ones and they could screw up population counts. Also doing so could result in more predators (birds and such) and they may bring desiese too.

If you do get anything from www.wwb.co.uk and don't wish to keep them anymore, as long as they are pupae and are not close to hatching into adults, you can ask if they can take them, sure they would, I asked about speckled woods I got from there and they said they would take them back as pupae if I had too many.

I was told I could breed and releaase momarch butterflies just as long as I informed local BC about them so they know where they came from, but they are rare migrants and don't survive here anyway.

[Susie]

I would imagine that what I want to do falls into the category of your last paragraph, Dave.

[Padfield]

If by 'European swallowtail' you mean ssp. gorganus, I would suggest any releases would need to be reported to the local BC because this is known as a rare migrant to the UK. If someone spotted gorganus flying around in southern England it would be taken seriously, I imagine, as a British record. It is also possible that pupae described as 'European swallowtail' are actually ssp. britannicus, as outside Europe that description could well simply mean Papilio machaon, as opposed to 'continental' Papilio machaon, and British swallowtails are widely bred.

Personally, I wouldn't recommend rearing and releasing a non-native species simply because it smacks of exploiting an insect for my own pleasure. I'd rather see insects where they occur naturally, even if that means I see some of them only rarely. But I expect that is a question of taste rather than morals - I don't suppose any suffering would actually occur if you were to do this!!

Guy

[Shirley Roulston]

Susie, what if you were to contact a butterfly farm, they have one on Anglesey you can't buy from there but maybe with their heated greenhouses if you were to buy and rear some then may be release them in their greenhouses so they can give pleasure to others in an enviroment they'd be used to. Just a thought. On Anglesey this place is called Pili Pala, I seen little wooded type hutches with the pupa all hanging in rows, so they do rear their own but maybe they have to have a licence.
Shirley

[Piers]

Hi Susie,

My two penneth:

If embarking upon rearing/breeding non-native butterflies such as this one has to consider the thorny issue of what to do with the emergent adults. I would say that releasing into the wild should not really be an option. I guess I am kind of with Guy here in so much as why would you want to do this? Rearing a continental species and releasing them into the garden is not really any different to letting them emerge and killing them immediately. Butterflies do not experience emotion (quote: I would love to think they could have a little bit of freedom) and they will simply die in the wild here anyway. The only difference is the manner of their death - one is directly inflicted by you and one indirectly.

Felix.

[Susie]

How do you know that butterflies do not experience emotion?

[Piers]

Because their 'brains' are a series of 'signal processors', simple reflexive systems. This is not to say that they are simple automatons, insects are capable of a degree of 'learning' (for want of a more much appropriate word) but they are not capable of rational thought processes or emotional responses. Butterflies do not posses the capacity of thought that higher mammals do. They can not think or reason.

Felix.

[NickB]

How do you know that butterflies do not experience emotion?

I know we all saw Johnny Morris (with apologies to the young folk!), but his attribution of human emotion to animals was entertainment, Susie, not fact!

Sorry to disillusion you!

[Susie]

You'll be telling me there is no father christmas next, Nick.

I may be guilty of anthropomorphism but I believe that some instincts are shared across most living things of a certain degree of intelligence. The instinct to feed, to mate and to be free to do the these two things must, in my uneducated opinion, exist. When one of the first two needs is sated then I would imagine there would be a mental "reward" for the creature involved; a chemical release of some kind. You don't need to be able to think on a higher level to feel emotion.

For a butterfly to be able to soar on a warm breeze with the sun on its wings and land on a flower and drink sweet nectar or finds a mate must feel "good" to it because it is fulfilling a need that it has been genetically predisposed to fulfil.

That's my gut instinct anyway. I am sure you are all far more educated than I and can run rings around me with science though telling me why and how I am wrong. However once upon a time scientists told us that the difference between us and "animals" was that we could use tools and they couldn't (the list is endless!), that they didn't feel real pain (ask a beagle), that they didn't have organised communities (bees and ants, anyone?), and that they were unintelligent (chimpanzees have been taught to use sign language and can hold conversations) so forgive me if I don't believe everything I am told and go along with my gut instinct.

[Piers]

Hi Susie,

I am not being rude, but this is just fanciful. Your sentence is loaded with human emotive responses to a series of experiences that we would expect to be thoroughly enjoyable. The butterfly needs warmth in order for it to biologically function. Butterflies do not perceive flowers to be beautiful. They do not posses the ability to react to them in such a way. Butterflies do not taste sweetness - they do not have taste buds as we would understand them or the thought processes to 'think' "hmmm this nectar tastes goood". You have fallen into the trap of allowing the insect to experience human emotions. Butterflies are simply reacting to a series of stimuli that trigger a reactive response.

Felix.

[Padfield]

Leaving aside properly philsophical questions about the ascription of consciousness and the logic of subjectivity &c. (my own specialist areas of research and training, as it happens), there is a commonsense middle way that compassion surely advises us to follow, which applies to all creatures, human and non-human.

That middle way is always to make a real effort to see things from the other's point of view (i.e., to put yourself in the other's place, using whatever language helps you to do this), whilst simultaneously recognising that for a whole host of reasons the other will not see or experience things as you do. When the other is a different species, biology and physical limitations (or otherwise) will figure high among that host of reasons. Thus, it is manifestly wrong not to speak of joy and jealousy and fear when talking about dogs, for example. A dog's joy is related to human joy and to refuse the word because of dogmatic opposition to anthropomorphism is to distort the reality. On the other hand, you equally distort the reality if you attribute to a dog forms of joy it cannot have (like joy that its birthday is coming up, or joy over some achievement several days in the past) or fail to recognise the joy a dog experiences when doing something you find disgusting (like rolling in poo or sniffing another dog's bottom).

When the creature in question has such different biology that an honest person is forced to admit he cannot possibly imagine what the world is like from that creature's point of view, or perhaps is not even sure whether that creature has a point of view, I believe you have to fall back on a kind of 'respect' for the other. I have no idea whether butterflies have any subjective existence at all, but I can respect them and their choices all the same. In freedom, butterflies choose to feed, mate, lay eggs, fly around circuits and territories, bask in the sun &c. Out of respect, I choose not to deprive them of these opportunities wherever possible.

That is why I would not rear a butterfly for pleasure or interest and then either kill it or release it into a barren or hostile environment where it couldn't fulfil its biological imperatives. To me it would be not really respecting the insect as an end in itself but rather treating it as a means. No creature is so humble it doesn't deserve to be treated as an end in itself.

That, at least, is my opinion!!

Guy

[Susie]

Hi Susie,

I am not being rude, but this is just fanciful. Your sentence is loaded with human emotive responses to a series of experiences that we would expect to be thoroughly enjoyable. The butterfly needs warmth in order for it to biologically function. Butterflies do not perceive flowers to be beautiful. They do not posses the ability to react to them in such a way. Butterflies do not taste sweetness - they do not have taste buds as we would understand them or the thought processes to 'think' "hmmm this nectar tastes goood". You have fallen into the trap of allowing the insect to experience human emotions. Butterflies are simply reacting to a series of stimuli that trigger a reactive response.

Felix.

Thank you for your reply, Felix. I do appreciate it and understand the point you are trying to make (I think ). I expect you are correct. However, my gut instinct still tells me that there is more to butterflies than that. I wish I were more eloquent so I could put my point as well as you put yours, even if mine is wrong, but I'm not so I won't.

Good point, well made, Guy.

[Susie]

Susie, what if you were to contact a butterfly farm, they have one on Anglesey you can't buy from there but maybe with their heated greenhouses if you were to buy and rear some then may be release them in their greenhouses so they can give pleasure to others in an enviroment they'd be used to. Just a thought. On Anglesey this place is called Pili Pala, I seen little wooded type hutches with the pupa all hanging in rows, so they do rear their own but maybe they have to have a licence.
Shirley

Sorry, Shirley, I am not ignoring you. Unfortunately there aren't any butterfly farms near me.

[Hamearis]

Susie
I bet your cat loves you and understands evry word you say!
Ham

[Susie]

No need to be sarcastic, Ham

And no, I don't have a pet cat. If I did have a pet (which would be a dog, from choice) I wouldn't expect it to understand anything I said with regard to language but I would expect a dog or cat to pick up a certain amount of what I meant from my tone of voice, body language, and other visual signs.

[NickB]

You'll be telling me there is no father christmas next, Nick. .

Steady on!

Meanwhile.......

OT_Upset.jpg (74.89 KiB) Viewed 1441 times

Perhaps (not) the final word?!

[Susie]

Love it!