Cotswold Cockney

[Mark Tutton]

Rather than fill up Paulines diary I thought I would start a new thread firstly WOW what a great set of photos and thanks for posting and I am more than happy to stand corrected about pairing
I wasn't suggesting that a living could be made from collecting wild larvae - I too have sought these in the wild and we would have starved to death in a week if! I think what was happening is this chap genuinely WAS collecting wild females to lay and breed on in captivity to freshen his long established breeding stock. And my point still stand about needing permission. I think the general consensus is that taking a few individuals from the wild does not endanger populations and from most of my reading it seems even in the heyday of collecting it was rare that this caused the demise of certain species. It is nearly always mans 'other' influences such as habitat destruction. Indeed my own interest in butterflies stemmed from my schooldays when a camera was way beyond my budget but could make a net with my mums old net curtains!
I do have more of an issue where people are collecting from very small fragile sites like the people I found on Duke of Burgundy site last year. This area has rarely more that 20 individuals and is very small - serious damage could be done by taking females from here I think.
Cheers Mark

[David M]

I'd hate to think anyone was still netting butterflies to merely kill and display them in a collection, but I do appreciate that there are individuals out there who have a genuine interest in observing the entire life cycle. The problem is differentiating between a female ready to lay fertile eggs and one that has not yet been mated. This wouldn't be so big an issue in a common species, but with rarer ones it's more serious, particularly if there's some kind of financial incentive involved.

[Paul Harfield]

Hi
I am not sure exactly what the topic of this thread is But I am assuming it is to discuss the person seen by Pauline at Alice Holt with a net. People have made comments on the net aspect but what is the consensus of opinion about the releasing of Black Hairstreak larvae, assuming it is true of course. This aspect appears to have gone without comment

[Cotswold Cockney]

Interesting responses folks. It is a very complex subject. I added my comments to try and maybe enlighten the hard core of "anti-net folks" that carrying one in the field it is not necessarily a bad thing.

Unless one is really lucky, it would be difficult to net many female PEs. One or two maybe. In my entire lifetime, I have netted fewer than ten and of those mostly males. Whenever I felt the need to inject some fresh blood into my captive stock, two or three ova are much less effort to obtain and achieve the same objective and require far less care and attention.

If the chap originally described is the same one who wrote to me all those years ago, and I'd bet a nice few quid it is, unless he's had a big change of heart, he is still a caring individual. If he obtains a female, then to release say three or four adults from the resulting brood in the same locality the following summer, all will benefit. During that meantime, Forestry workers could clear fell the area where that female laid most of her ova as I have observed on occasions in the past. It's a complex issue.

Of course, there are some less caring individuals where netting specimens is concerned but, in my experience over many years, they themselves are an endangered species.

In my response on Pauline's thread, I mentioned a disappointing visit to a woodland I have visited since my schooldays in the 1950s. Huge changes by the commercial owners. It looked like a Motorway is being prepared through the woodland... a tad of an exaggeration but, not too far removed from what I observed to another beautiful Gloucestershire Woodland in the late 1950s when the M50 "Ross Spur Motorway" was being constructed. Key areas were devastated. I was very disappointed not to see a single Wood White or White Admiral and very few other the more common species on my recent visit. I could see more species through my garden on an average summer's day.

I took a number of pictures and when time allows, I may post my findings about the goings on in my all time 'favourite' wood ... In the whole world ..

Releasing an excess of bred captive specimens. Over the years, on a few occasions I have been guilty of that. I have released Marsh and Glanville Fritillaries in Glos. Our own Jack Harrison can confirm that as back in the 1970s, in a very remote Cotswold Valley, he 'discovered' my secret colony of Glanvilles. Of course, I could have stamped on them all which the purist in me suggests, but, who could do that. I have also released a few PEs back in the woodland where their parents previously flew but, only a few which would have very little effect on local populations. Hopefully those small releases would be beneficial.