Reintroduction of forest butterflies set to expand
A charity says it has been given £150,000 to expand the project in the next three years.
Reintroduction of forest butterflies set to expand
Conservationists who helped bring a butterfly back to England have been awarded £150,000 to widen the project over the next three years.
Altogether, 46 Chequered Skippers were released into Rockingham Forest near Corby, Northamptonshire, in May, using a donor population from Belgium.
The funding has been awarded to the Butterfly Conservation charity by Natural England's Species Recovery Programme, with hopes that the species will be reintroduced to Peterborough.
Dr Jamie Wildman, based in Kettering and working for the charity, said the money would support "self-sufficiency of the reintroduced population, to ensure these beautiful insects can thrive in England once again".
Until the 1950s, the Chequered Skipper was still locally common in woodlands across the East Midlands.
The charity said the Chequered Skipper became extinct in England after a sharp decline in 1976, believed to have been caused by changing woodland management in the species' Rockingham Forest heartland.
It said the coniferisation of the ancient woodlands first created more open conditions and the species flourished, but as the conifers matured the population vanished.
Work to bring different butterflies back to the area has been under way for the past 10 years.
Its former stronghold was Castor Hanglands, in woodland west of Peterborough, where it had been recorded for more than 120 years.
The new project hopes it will be reintroduced there.
The Chequered Skipper "is a very enigmatic species, a beautiful golden brown jewel of English woodlands that was declared extinct in 1976" said Dr Wildman.
To collect the new Chequered Skippers, Wildman and two other Butterfly Conservation officers, together with 20 helpers from the Belgian Research Institute for Nature and Forest, trekked through the Fagne landscape.
The butterflies that were caught were marked with a red felt-tip pen, and 44 females and two males were taken back to the UK and released into Fineshade Wood, where they all flew off.
Each butterfly was marked with a red felt-tip pen to help the charity's volunteers monitor them.
Karl Ivens, wildlife manager at Forestry England, said: "The return of the Chequered Skipper to Rockingham Forest is a fantastic conservation success story.
"It shows what can be achieved when expert partners, dedicated volunteers and long-term habitat management come together.
"We're incredibly proud to be helping create the conditions for this beautiful butterfly to thrive once again in Fineshade Wood, which we look after."
A large team of people worked in Belgium to collect the butterflies.