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You are here: Home / News / SBBT Patron explores vital site for Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing
4th instar caterpillar of Queen Alexandra's Birdwing. Credit: Ian Orrell

SBBT Patron explores vital site for Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing

19th October 2017 by Mark Collins

On 19-21 September SBBT Patron Henry Barlow and entomologist Charles Harbottle visited the 700m Managalas Plateau in Northern Province, PNG, to assess the populations of Queen Alexandra’s Birdwing there.  The visit was facilitated by local NGO partners the Managalas Conservation Foundation and Partners with Melanesians, whose Facebook page has many excellent photographs!

Getting to the Plateau involved a 3-hour drive on a dirt road, accompanied by staff from Higaturu Estate, where it is planned to build the new butterfly breeding facility. On arrival, they waded through two rivers, and hiked for 40 minutes through overgrown vegetable gardens to a site on the forest edge. Here they found a small ranching enterprise, undertaken by a local family that helps to conserve the species by collecting caterpillars in their last, 6th instar, and placing them in a protected environment where they pupate for eight weeks, emerge, and harden their wings before being released back into the forest. It is estimated 100-200 are released annually, making a significant contribution to the wild population.

The poor access road comes with no power, water services and minimal health and education facilities; so the 22,000 people who live on the Plateau may have the world’s most spectacular butterfly on their doorstep, but their day-to-day focus is more on farming, and feeding and educating the family. How can the Birdwing help to meet local people’s needs and at the same time retain enough habitat for a sustainable breeding population? This is the challenge the Swallowtail and Birdwing Butterfly Trust aims to tackle in partnership with local organisations.

Watch this space!

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    Latest News

    Saving Swallowtails Online Conference announced

    26th March 2021

    SBBT is pleased to launch an online conference to celebrate World Swallowtail Day on Saturday 12th June 2021. This worldwide videoconference will be in two sessions, Eastern time-zone  08:00 – 11.00 UTC and Western time-zone 17:00 – 20.00 UTC. In all, 14 papers from top researchers will look at what is being done to protect threatened species. […]

    WORLD WILDLIFE DAY

    3rd March 2021

    This year’s UN World Wildlife Day theme is “Forests and Livelihoods: Sustaining People and Planet” – a subject very close to our heart in SBBT. Less than three years ago a new swallowtail Papilio natewa, was discovered on Vanua Levu, Fiji and, following a research programme, we are now sponsoring NatureFiji, the island’s main conservation […]

    Swallowtail Limericks

    23rd May 2020

    May 12th was National Limerick Day, celebrating Edward Lear’s wonderful invention of nonsense poetry. SBBT is inviting everyone to submit a limerick about swallowtails. Take a look at the details here. We will publish them on our website on World Swallowtail Day, 14th June. Why not have a go!?

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    Swallowtails and birdwings are beautiful and graceful butterflies – who wouldn’t love to see them dancing in the sunlight or sipping nectar from wildflowers? But many species are under threat from agriculture, forestry and climate change. We have ideas, enthusiasm and a vision for the future. Will you help us to achieve our goals?

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