Nearly 50 Years After Vanishing from English Lands, This Rare Butterfly Species Has Made a Successful Comeback

The brome skipper, a rare species of butterfly that has disappeared from the English countryside for 50 years, has been successfully reintroduced, after work lasting more than six years.

A species that disappeared in 1976

The Butterfly Conservation association brought back an insect donor population from Belgium in 2018. According to the BBC, there were a total of 128 butterflies, 101 females and 27 males, imported over the course of five years. The aim was to reintroduce a rare species of butterfly, the brome skipper, which had been extinct in England since 1976, almost 50 years.

And the least we can say is that this project was a real success. Indeed, the association behind this initiative declared that as time progresses, the number of brome skippers increases, in particular thanks to reproduction, bringing the total at present to 350 individuals.

Forest management as the main cause of disappearance

Still commonly present until 1950 in some English forests such as those in the East Midlands region, in the east of the English country, this species of butterflies, recognizable thanks to its dark brown color and its spots, which can be white or even yellow, has since gradually disappeared.

The main cause, according to the English media, remains the change in forest management, such as the lack of maintenance of paths or the increase in conifer plantations, unfavorable for the good development of brome skippers.

The brome skipper among the species successfully reintroduced in recent years

The brome skipper is a very good example of the reintroduction of a species, many years after its disappearance. There are many cases of reintroductions, which have had a positive effect, having taken place in recent years. For example, there is the bearded vulture, a vulture reintroduced to the Alps in the late 1990s and early 2000s, after being declared extinct in the wild in this region.

There is also the case of the bald eagle in the United States, which has gone from a species on the brink of extinction, due to habitat destruction and hunting, to a species classified as “least concern”. on the IUCN red list. All in the space of fifty years.

Source: BBC