The hunt for ever decreasing numbers of moths and butterflies

RNZ News

a day ago

The monarch is not endemic to New Zealand but it is a native because it flew or blew here in the 1830s.
Photo:
Alex Harmer
On a mid-summer day in the snow tussock grasslands of the rugged Lammermoor Range in Otago more than 40 years ago, butterfly scientist Brian Patrick made the most memorable discovery of his career. Six new species of native moths.
Despite more than 5000 butterfly hunting expeditions the entomologist immediately recalls that day as the most special.
"Twenty third of February, 1983," he says.
"My brother-in-law worked for the Ministry of Works hydrology department and he saw the wonderful snowbanks and wonderful herb fields and snow tussock grasslands of the Lammermoor Range, inland from Dunedin."
The four-wheel drive up there was a revelation.
Butterfly scientist Brian Patrick holding a monarch butterfly he found.
Photo:
Alex Harmer
"They were just flying around in the daytime," says Patrick, who has written a book with his son Hamish called
Butterflies of the South Pacific
.
He's been back to the Lammermoor Range 30 times since.
"There are lepidoptera that are hatching for the first time in the season right through in late April early May. We have a lot of early winter emerging lepidoptera in New Zealand across many different families of moths and butterflies."
In contrast to that plentiful February day, Patrick says 2025 has been a "poorer year than normal for all our moths and butterflies".
"Whether it relates to temperature or environmental conditions or something else we don't know."
He says it is not worrying. Yet.
"Climate and all those things are dynamic. We need to see a pattern. One year doesn't tell the story necessarily."
Jacqui Knight from Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand in her garden
Photo:
Sharon Brettkelly
But Jacqui Knight of Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand Trust is worried that there's not one butterfly in her suburban Auckland garden.
That's partly because it is cold and wet but even in the trees in a nearby park, where monarch butterflies have overwintered in previous years, none can be found.
She says there could be several factors behind the poor season, including exotic wasps and diseases.
"With all the people that are working towards saving the monarch in New Zealand by using butterfly houses and caterpillar castles to raise them and release them it's just incredible that the numbers are not increasing," says Knight.
The monarch is not endemic to New Zealand but it is a native because it flew or blew here in the 1830s, she says. It is global, unlike Aotearoa's endemic species.
"Most of them, if they disappear, we will never get them back again. When a butterfly species in Britain is lost sometimes they've been able to go to other parts of Europe to find them. But New Zealand's lepidoptera species - that's butterflies and moths - 93 percent of them - only exist in New Zealand.
Jacqui Knight from Moths and Butterflies of New Zealand uses a toothpick to place a small tracking sticker on a monarch butterfly
Photo:
Sharon Brettkelly
"We lose them, they're gone forever."
Knight says there is a lot to learn about lepidoptera but it is a battle to raise funds for further research and raise awareness about the need to protect them.
"There's so many needs out there. That's the problem."
Brian Patrick says there are many reasons we should care about our own butterflies and moths.
"Aesthetically I'm in love with them. I just love their form, their antics. But they pollinate our flowers," he says. "So econologically they are really integral to our environment, let alone our crops, the food we eat and everything from our flowers and our gardens and our lawns.
"But just the diversity of them is important enough. It lifts me and I'm sure it lifts lots of people to see the diversity of nature out there every day."
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