Bathed in spring sunshine, thousands of purple crow butterflies alight in the woods near Pingding (坪頂) in south-central Taiwan to feed on nectar on a recent Sunday, gathering strength before continuing on their long journey back to their breeding grounds in the north.
Guided by their teachers, young students from the area concentrate on recording the number of the insects passing by. At times, the teachers catch the delicate creatures with nets and quickly tag their wings with an identifying mark before setting them free.
“The ‘capture and release’ strategy is part of our long-term campaign to track the species’ migratory routes for educational and conservation purposes,” said Huang Hsi-pei, academic affairs director of Chengkung Elementary School in Yunlin County.
This grassroots educational drive is a welcome change from previous decades, when the “butterfly kingdom” — as Taiwan is known in some circles — was a killing field for the colorful winged creatures during their seasonal migrations.
A lack of interest in conservation led to the extinction of two precious species — the king crow and tailed cupid — in the 1960s, but today, butterfly preservation is a high enough priority that even Taiwan’s freeway bureau has blocked off sections of road to prevent the purple crows from being squashed by passing cars.
Conservationists would like to see even more efforts by the government, but they said efforts by the freeway bureau and programs such as those conducted by the elementary school are a good start to a long-term solution — protecting the butterflies’ natural habitat and making butterfly conservation a widespread public concern.
The purple crow butterflies provide an example of how vulnerable fragile insects are to human encroachment on their natural habitats and how a little effort by the government and society can make a big difference.
“Butterflies are such delicate creatures that once you destroy the plants they rely on, they have little chance of survival,” said Chan Chia-lung (詹家龍), an entomologist-turned-conservationist who won an award in Japan last year for his long-term observation of the species.
After years of extensive tracking by conservation experts and volunteers, it was discovered that purple crow butterflies spend the winter in Taiwan’s warmer southern region to escape the winter cold in the north.
In October each year, instinct draws the butterflies to take refuge in low-lying valleys on the two sides of the southern foothills of Taiwan’s Central Mountain Range, most notably Maolin (茂林) in Kaohsiung County and Dawu (大武) in Taitung County, where they winter until March.
At the onset of spring, the butterflies begin a 400km migration back to their northern habitats, following a variety of routes from Maolin and Dawu until they reach the hillside village of Pingding, where they converge in the thousands or even millions before crossing the Choshui River (濁水溪). The butterflies then fly to different destinations in central, northern and northeastern Taiwan, where they fulfill their most important mission — to mate and lay their eggs.
This “butterfly highway” offers an incredibly rare spectacle, with the monarch butterfly in Mexico being the only other butterfly species to migrate like birds and winter in a particular valley, Chan said.
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