Chequered Skipper reintroduction

[David M]

We've discussed this before, but today I had an email from Butterfly Conservation inviting me to make a donation (which I will do shortly) to help finance the reintroduction of the Chequered Skipper to England.

More here:

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/help-brin ... X5,LY62O,1

[Paul Harfield]

I heard Chris Packham talking today on Chris Evans Breakfast Show today about this subject. He said he was directly involved with this reintroduction which had started today apparently. I am sure he said that adult butterflies had been captured in Belgium over the last couple of days and transported to the UK and released today. Have I got that correct?
I am curious as to the reason why this reintroduction has been done with captured adults of the species. Whereas other reintroductions are facilitated by intense breeding programmes. Why the difference?

[monet]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... are_btn_tw

[CallumMac]

I don't know how others feel, but I'm quite excited by this project. I hope it's a big success.

adult butterflies had been captured in Belgium over the last couple of days and transported to the UK and released today. Have I got that correct? ... I am curious as to the reason why this reintroduction has been done with captured adults of the species.

Yes, spot on. I suspect there were a few things at play here. I know that BC were keenly aware of the previous attempt to reintroduced Chequered Skipper (to Chambers Farm Wood - is that right?) and its very rapid failure, which it seems is thought to have been because the habitat and microclimatic conditions at CFW were too dissimilar from those to which the source population were locally adapted (Jeremy Thomas says that the first attempt to bring Large Blue back to the Cotswolds failed for the same reason). As a consequence they have invested a lot of time into a detailed study of the habitat and microclimates at the reintroduction site, comparing many variables to seven (I think) possible source populations for the reintroduction from across Belgium and the neighbouring countries, as well as the Scottish population - the latter largely for the sake of argument, as I doubt it was ever seriously under consideration! There is therefore a considerable degree of confidence that the butterflies being released will feel right at home in Rockingham, and more importantly should be able to find and utilise microclimates in which their offspring will thrive.

As for why captured adults rather than a breeding program, again there may be a couple of reasons. It's got to be cheaper in terms of staff hours to bring the adults over directly than to pay somebody for a year (or more) to breed from them. Perhaps there is not enough known about the species' biology to be confident of maintaining a healthy captive population? And finally, when rearing butterflies through multiple generations in captivity, there is a very real danger that you accidentally conduct selection for butterflies that are well-adapted to reproducing in the conditions provided in captivity - if that occurred, it would undo the hard work put into choosing the best-matching source population. With these disadvantages attached to the breeding program approach, perhaps it's better to go that way only when there is no potential source population that's sufficiently strong to permit a large number of individuals to be taken? In this case, there were such large source populations available.

[Rosalyn]

Anglia News report at the bottom of the link. They should feel quite at home it's raining
http://www.itv.com/news/anglia/2018-05- ... ptonshire/

[EricY]

Did no one see Chris Packham's report on Springwatch Monday night, I expected some comments although content was similar to the Anglia TV link posted above. Hope it all goes well as 60 miles to Rockingham is better than 450 miles to For William for me.

[peterc]

Sadly, the clip on Monday's edition of Springwatch was short, probably less than 5 minutes at the very end.

Will there be further news about the re-introduction in future episodes?

ATB

Peter

[David M]

I had an email from the Crowdfunder site earlier today and the project has raised nearly £11,000 so far (£6,000 was the target).

Well done to all who contributed.