Butterflies - A Very British Obsession

[Jack Harrison]

HarassedDad wrote about Chalkhills at Warham Camp Norfolk stating that they have been introduced.

People keep repeating that but no one has provided any firm evidence. Chalkhill Blues are notorious wanderers so why couldn't they have arrived naturally from the very strong colony on Devil's Dyke, Newmarket?

I am quite prepared to accept that the CHB's at Warham are the result of human involvement if there is evidence. But without such evidence, an open mind is required.

Jack

[Jack Harrison]

I mentioned my failed attempt with Wood Whites into Wiltshire.

In the early 70s, one March I went to the Isle of Wight and took about 40 (numbers very vague now) Glanville Fritillary caterpillars from different larval nests (to get the diversity). I bred these to adults with remarkably few losses. These paired readily and laid on plantain. By the following spring, I had perhaps 800 very hungry caterpillars. I simply couldn’t cope with that number. It was never the intention to try to introduce but I had to do something with this hungry lot. I found a place not far away, Caudle Green (SO946102) in the Cotswolds, where there was masses of plantain. The gentle slope was north facing so I didn’t anticipate any colony would survive. That same summer, I found quite a number of adults. The next year, I found a handful and that was that – no more.

A passing lepidopterist happened to come across my little colony and reported his find in I think, the Entomologists Record. I didn't hear about this some time later so put him out of his state of excitement.

Naughty naughty. But remember this was the best part of 40 years ago and in those days wasn't seen in the same light as it would be today.

Jack

[Liz Goodyear]

Okay I haven't watched the programme in full yet. I saw Matthew and Neil and then had to stop watching so I haven't seen Martin White's bit yet. So some might feel I shouldn't comment.

I have never been able to accept unauthorised releases - in Hertfordshire it prevented 10 years of postive management for the Purple Emperor because when the first reports started to filter through 20 years ago, no one accepted them as genuine. Everyone was convinced they had come out of a matchbox. They have been released in Essex but who knows they might have still been present.

My opinion is that we should be looking after what we still have rather than putting something on a site that has never existed there in the first place. Goldfish bowl colonies can't work - for all species we have to look at the landscape.

Liz Goodyear

[Jack Harrison]

Welcome Liz. What's kept you for so long?

I'm sure I speak for everyone on this group when I say that I look forward to many useful contributions.

Persuade Andrew M to join in as well.

Jack

[NickB]

...
I have never been able to accept unauthorised releases - in Hertfordshire it prevented 10 years of postive management for the Purple Emperor because when the first reports started to filter through 20 years ago, no one accepted them as genuine. Liz Goodyear

I think this is an issue that has been present ever since breeders started importing butterflies in the Victorian age (and before), though their motives were financial, not for the good of butterflies!

However, there is an attitude amongst some who run monitoring schemes to be dismissive of reports from "the public" - even though some of "the public" are possibly better-informed on their locality than those that dismiss them. I have had similar reponses from local mammal groups when I report that 5 separate people have seen European Dormice in my local cemetery. They were dismissed as "very unlikely" and I have had no-one come back to me to even look at the site, or talk to those who have seen it and whose judgement I trust. So "officially" they don't exist! Tell that to the glis glis in there!
N
Edit: And this is a big problem for me, as I try to pull-together a management plan with the council and other interested parties for the cemetery. If there is no "official" sanction, there is nothing that I can do to prevent loss of suitable habitat (which has started to happen).

[Jack Harrison]

I raise an issue which although I have aired before, now seems to be an appropriate time to re-iterate.

A woodpecker drills a hole in a tree. Termites build huge mounds (and I have personal experience of that when trying to fly gliders from a termite-infested airfield in South Africa). Without question, we would accept that the behaviour of the woodpecker or by the termites is perfectly natural; they are modifying the environment for their own purposes.

Humans are animals. We don’t simply modify our environment just to make it easier to live comfortably. We can use our brains to modify the environment in a way that gives us pleasure. We tend our gardens because the sight of a herbaceous border in full flower is enjoyable. Many of us get pleasure from watching butterflies. If we use our brains to enable us to watch butterflies more easily (Eric’s tongue-in-cheek example of Chequered Skippers at Dersingham Bog comes to mind) and introduce or re-introduce butterflies for our own selfish satisfaction, who is to argue that we humans, being animals, are not acting naturally? Of course our brains can go one step further and rationalise the impact of our selfish actions on other wildlife; but this is another example of natural behaviour by human animals.

Jack

[Liz Goodyear]

Thank you Jack for the welcome - appreciated

[Pete Eeles]

Welcome Liz. What's kept you for so long?

I'm sure I speak for everyone on this group when I say that I look forward to many useful contributions.

Persuade Andrew M to join in as well.

Jack

And a welcome from me too Liz For those that don't know Liz, she's responsible (with Andrew Middleton) for some ground-breaking work regarding the Purple Emperor:

http://www.hertsmiddx-butterflies.org.u ... hp#reports

and White-letter Hairstreak:

http://www.hertsmiddx-butterflies.org.u ... /index.php

What's your next project Liz?

Cheers,

- Pete

[HarassedDad]

What to do with your bred adults depends on what they are.

If they are a species that dosn't occur in the Uk it's illegal to release them into the wild. It's illegal to release anything into an SSSI without permission.

If they were originally collected from the wild then releasing them back where you got them from is probably ok, providing you can be certain you aren't introducing any viruses: although there is an issue about genetic fitness (Natural breeding insects are winnowed by natural selection, 99% will die and only the best will survive to breed - by artificially rearing a number protected from natural hazards you will reduce the overall fitness of the population.).

Introducing them into an area that they don't now occur in is also ok - as long as you let someone know. And as long as you are sure that they don't occur (which can be difficult) So I'd have no problem in someone sticking black hairstreak into norfolk for example - it isn't here, it's never been here so there's no native population to bugger up.

The big no no is introducing insects collected from point A into point B where there is an existing colony - as you will introduce a "foreign" genotype that has not evolved to suit the conditions occuring locally - a large introduction could swamp the native genotype, leading to a major reduction in fitness and possibly tipping a struggling colony over the edge.

The CHB's at Warham are an introduction: apart from being fairly certain who did it , there is a significant point. From a max count of 12 last year the population hit over 200 this year - a level at which the larva produced (2-3 thousand perhaps?) will most probably consume all the foodplant available. I doubt that intra-specific competion will permit any larva to reach adulthood next year. Remember the chalk grassland is artificial - the result of the iron-age embankments - and there is no other suitable habitat in the area - so the adults can't disperse and find suitable host plants elsewhere. With ten caterpillars to a plant only determined cannabalism will allow any to make it past the first few instars. It's that boom and bust that make introductions so difficult. It's not enough that a site is suitable - they has to be other sites in the area that the colony can spread out to, establishing satalite colonies that can re-establish the mother colony when it dies out. If you really wanted to establish CHB's at warham you would need to buy some fields around and excavate down to the chalk, bring it up to the surface, establish chalk grasslands and then introduce them. Give me £100,000 and we could do it - but frankly randomly dumping a bunch out of a cardboard box isn't going to cut it. And if I had £100,000 I'd rather spend it on site management for Dingy and Grizzled, which are critically endangered in Norfolk, than in introducing a non-native species just to save someone a 60mile trip to devil's dyke.

[Liz Goodyear]

Harassed Dad wrote

And if I had £100,000 I'd rather spend it on site management for Dingy and Grizzled, which are critically endangered in Norfolk, than in introducing a non-native species just to save someone a 60mile trip to devil's dyke.

I totally agree
Liz

[Jack Harrison]

As a follow up to my earlier post, Devil’s Dyke Newmarket is natural, having been created by colonies of that abundant animal, Homo sapiens to protect territory and food supplies from hostile animals of another colony of the same species

Jack

[NickB]

As a follow up to my earlier post, Devil’s Dyke Newmarket is natural, having been created by colonies of that abundant animal, Homo sapiens to protect territory and food supplies from hostile animals of another colony of the same species
Jack

..and, naturally enough, BC is involved in the management of that site with Newmarket Racecourse, amongst others.

I think there IS a concensus being reached here. As Pete commented - informed decisions dictate suitable actions...

[millerd]

After all, if you enjoy rearing or breeding butterflies you will ultimately end up with a not inconsiderable number of imagines. So what does an amateur rearer/breeder do? kill them and set them, kill them and bin them, or release them somewhere?

There is nothing wrong in wishing to study these creatures, or even to rear them for fun, but the problem of what to do with the resulting adult insects remains.

Felix.

Apologies if this question has been asked and answered before, but having often admired his glorious photos of perfect newly-emerged adult butterflies, captively bred, I've always wondered what happens to the individuals that Pete has reared over the years. (My favourite is the shot of A Black Hairstreak and White-letter Hairstreak nose to nose.)

Dave

[Pete Eeles]

After all, if you enjoy rearing or breeding butterflies you will ultimately end up with a not inconsiderable number of imagines. So what does an amateur rearer/breeder do? kill them and set them, kill them and bin them, or release them somewhere?

There is nothing wrong in wishing to study these creatures, or even to rear them for fun, but the problem of what to do with the resulting adult insects remains.

Felix.

Apologies if this question has been asked and answered before, but having often admired his glorious photos of perfect newly-emerged adult butterflies, captively bred, I've always wondered what happens to the individuals that Pete has reared over the years. (My favourite is the shot of A Black Hairstreak and White-letter Hairstreak nose to nose.)

Dave

Not at all - this is exactly the kind of subject that needs to be discussed in the open. The answer is that it depends on the species. Some species are returned from whence they came, some go back to the original provider of the livestock (typically as pupae since I'm usually most interested in studying the immature stages - sending adults in the post is a "no no"), some are given to others that want to breed the species, some are bred on, and others are released. This is a subject unto itself, but I'm also careful about any sources of livestock since there are some unscrupulous individuals out there that, for example, will pass off foreign stock as British. Responsibility and common sense prevail

As Felix rightly implied - if you don't know what you're going to do with the adults, then you shouldn't be rearing the species. I have to admit that I've reared foreign species in the past and have subsequently regretted it, since I've been unable to release them. A lesson learned.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Piers]

So do we consider that it is perhaps the indiscriminate and irresponsible captive breeding of butterflies by enthusiastic but ignorant amateurs, resulting in ill thought out releases of surplus stock (which let's face it probably accounts for the majority of the 'dodgy' sightings and temporary populations) which more to blame than the activities of the very few individuals like MW who are very serious regarding their aims and methods?

Clearly to many people 'breeders' all fall into the same shady category; but as Pete points out there are both responsible and irresponsible members of that community. Are we to tar all these people with the same brush?

Felix.

[Neil Jones]

So do we consider that it is perhaps the indiscriminate and irresponsible captive breeding of butterflies by enthusiastic but ignorant amateurs, resulting in ill thought out releases of surplus stock (which let's face it probably accounts for the majority of the 'dodgy' sightings and temporary populations) which more to blame than the activities of the very few individuals like MW who are very serious regarding their aims and methods?

No most emphatically not! This isn't aimed at any person or individual but that argument is cognitively deficient. There are rules for logical, critical thinking.
That argument breaks one of the most important and does so twice. It is based on two arguments from authority. You either say, "he is an expert you must believe him" or ,"I am an expert believe me". The rules of thinking demand that you must reject such arguments and believe in EVIDENCE only.

You have provided no evidence to support your claim at all.

What evidence we do have is that he has carried out TWO THOUSAND introductions. The claim then is that these have worked to a great degree when others, as the published evidence shows, largely fail.

This is an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, but we have none at all.

[Gibster]

Just out of curiosity, say I managed to breed through a few hundred Niobe Fritillaries and decided to boot them out in the local woods. Adults or larvae. At the very moment of release the site warden jumps out of a bush with a policeman in tow and I'm officially arrested. "It's a fair cop, guvnor".

What action would be taken against me? Worst case scenario.

And does this ever actually ever occur in the real world? Do folks have much to worry about if they are caught? First offence maybe?

I should stress that apart from rearing tadpoles and locally collected Psychids I've never released anything back into the wild and I've never considered introducing an alien species. Not really my cup of tea.

Cheers,

Gibster.

[Pete Eeles]

I think the warden and policeman should be more worried about being caught in a bush together

I would suspect that it depends on the seriousness of the crime and, I'm sure, the motivation. Deliberately releasing a species that is recognised by DEFRA as a pest (I think Geranium Bronze and Gypsy Moth fall into this category) will probably result in a prosecution. I'm not aware of such a release ever happening.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Gibster]

So apart from the possibility of being ostracised by their local BC branch members, there's not much to sway somebody's mind if they decided to undertake an illicit butterfly release? And that wouldn't dissuade them if they were a loner or undertook the releases safe in the knowledge that "they know better than everyone else anyway". Other than their own conscience...maybe.

Wildlife laws are wonderful things, just not particularly easy to enforce I guess. Massive lack of resources. Let's face it - how many local councils do you know who place Wildlife near the top of their agenda? None near me, that's for sure regardless of how hardworking and sincerely earnest the wildlife team may be. There simply isn't enough money in the pot.

Maybe "offenders" should be put on a National Register

If I caught somebody in the act of liberating stock into a meadow, and they failed to adequately explain themselves, what powers do I have to 1) stop them releasing any more stock 2)take their details to forward to a wildlife officer or 3) take the stock from their possession right there? I suspect the answers would be none, none and none at all. Granted, I have absolutely no lawful authority and why should that person feel they have to explain their actions to anybody anyway! Rubbish

I'm not tarring all breeders with surplus stock with the same brush...but there are those with 'looser' principles than most.

[NickB]

...Wildlife laws are wonderful things, just not particularly easy to enforce I guess. Massive lack of resources. Let's face it - how many local councils do you know who place Wildlife near the top of their agenda? None near me, that's for sure regardless of how hardworking and sincerely earnest the wildlife team may be. There simply isn't enough money in the pot.
....

There will still be money to mow the grass to lawns and trash the hedges, etc; the irony is, that, properly implemented, a wildlife-friendly policy would probably cost less than what is spent on unnecessary "beautification" of our public places...
Education at all levels of society is the key....
N