Green protective netting stretching 860m will be set up along the Formosa Freeway for the next two weeks to help purple crow butterflies on their annual northbound migration, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said yesterday.
Drivers are asked to travel well within the speed limit to minimize butterfly fatalities during their yearly trek. The National Freeway Bureau will also shut down the outermost lane during peak migration hours from today to April 11.
The Taiwan Ecological Engineering Development Foundation (EEF) said tens of thousands of purple crow butterflies, or Euploea, fly northward from Maolin Township (茂林) in Kaohsiung County to Yunlin County’s Linnei Township (林內) each March and April around the Tomb Sweeping holiday.
PHOTO: LIN KUO-HSIEN, TAIPEI TIMES
It is considered to be the second-largest butterfly migration route in the world, following the migration of monarch butterflies from California to Mexico.
In 2007, with the help of butterfly conservation groups, the ministry initiated a “Purple Crow Butterfly Preservation Project” to ensure a safe journey for the insects. The project includes setting up green nettings, planting at least 1,600 more shrubs to attract the butterflies and mandatory road closures whenever the number of butterflies reaches 300 per minute.
The butterfly road kill rate has decreased significantly, from 3 percent originally to last year’s 0.3 percent. However, the number of butterflies has decreased significantly as well. Last year, the foundation reported 46,832 butterflies made it home safely, a sharp decrease from 335,648 the previous year, prompting the measures to protect them.
To make the journey safer and easier for the butterflies, the foundation has recommended the ministry expand the length of the green net by 200m as well as darken the color to make the nets more visible to the butterflies, foundation president Chiu Ming-yuan (邱銘源) said.
The bureau will set up learning booths at Sihu (西湖), Nantou (南投) and Cingshuei (清水) rest stops to educate the public about purple crow butterflies.
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