Rare Butterfly Species Reintroduced, Another Helped Out by Cattle

In February, we told you how last year’s great summer led to butterfly populations flourishing across the country. Now there has been news of a couple of projects to help boost the numbers of two failing species in Northern England.

Large Heath Butterfly populations were once widespread, inhabiting bog habitats in the northwest of the county. The last recorded sighting in Lancashire’s Heysham Moss, a peat bog with a wide range of plant and animal life, was at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Heysham Moss is now a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and a captive breeding programme from Lancashire Wildlife Trust and Chester Zoo was instigated last year to restore the butterfly to the area.

A healthy population of the Large Heath still dwells in nearby Winmarleigh Moss, and so a small number of females were taken from there to the zoo. These were then bred, under the guidance of experts, before being released at Heysham Moss.

“We are extremely pleased that the pupae we have so carefully reared are now hatching at Heysham Moss, their new home,” said Sarah Bird, Chester Zoo’s biodiversity officer.

Large Heath Butterflies need hare’s tail cotton grass for their larvae to feed on and cross-leaved heath for the adults to get their fill of nectar. Extensive land management of the habitat has provided sufficient quantities of the two plants to support the reintroduced butterfly.

The programme is going to continue for at least another year, with the intention of releasing more Large Heaths at Heysham Moss in 2015.

Now moving onto the Lake District, where cattle at a hill farm in the region have been helping to create the perfect habitat for a critically endangered butterfly called the High Brown Fritillary, as part of a programme set up by Natural England .

A herd of Luing cattle, considered amongst some of the best traditional cattle breeds for conservation grazing, is being used at High House Farm in Winster to trample down bracken, keeping it in check and allowing violets - the main food source of the butterfly larvae - to grow.

“The Luings have demonstrated many valuable benefits to our farm and to our landscape,” said farm manager Alec Smith, adding that they had wanted to use a cattle breed that would be able to navigate the farm’s terrain without difficulty.

So there you have it, butterflies thrived last year - and they might yet this year as well - and with programmes dotted around the country to encourage butterflies and insects of all kinds to prosper, hopefully it won’t be long before it isn't news that they are all doing so well.