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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

    Richard Bennett joins SBBT as Honorary Advisor on Captive Breeding

    20th July 2021

    Richard has bred butterflies for 55 years, starting in West Yorkshire and now in Watamu, Kenya. A zoologist trained at Oxford, for 30 years he has owned a butterfly farm supplying live exhibitions in USA and UK. His insight and knowledge of captive breeding will be key to the success of SBBT’s conservation projects.

    Richard Markham joins SBBT as Honorary Coordinator on the Natewa Swallowtail

    14th July 2021

    SBBT is delighted to welcome Richard as Honorary Coordinator for Natewa Swallowtail studies in Fiji, where he is closely involved with our project with NatureFiji Marequeti-Viti to conserve and breed Papilio natewa,  a very rare species discovered only in 2017. Richard is the Director of Kokomana Pte Ltd., a cocoa plantation and chocolate company based […]

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    30th June 2021

    On 12 June 2021 SBBT held a very successful online videoconference on “Saving Swallowtails”. Fourteen presentations highlighted the most advanced swallowtail conservation projects in the world, ranging from Florida, Jamaica, Brazil and Kenya to the UK, Italy, Singapore, Australia, PNG and Fiji. These presentations are now freely available to download from YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdB29sTt1KFJPc76X2PfEjg/playlists

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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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