Butterfly species up from 69 to 75: Experts
NEWDELHI: The number of butterfly species in the national Capital has gone up to 75 from 69 in 2017, experts revealed on the concluding day of the second edition of the ‘Delhi Butterfly Month’ on Saturday.
Experts said an increase in butterfly population is good news because butterflies are a crucial indicator of assessing if the ecosystem is healthy. Moreover, butterflies work as pollinators for food crops.
In a first, nearly 85% species of butterflies were found in 36 of the city parks and gardens, besides protected areas. The four most uncommon sightings—common Blue Line, Balkan Pierrot, Dingy Swift and Spotted Pierrot—were found in city parks, mostly the ones around residential colonies. Interestingly none of the four species were sighted in the protected forest areas. Conservationists said Common Blue Line and Balkan Pierrot were found at parks in north-west Delhi, which is considered to be a completely urbanised area.
Elaborating further, conservationists said while the Common Blue Line was spotted in Sheesh Mahal garden in Shalimar Bagh, the Balkan Pierrot, which was sighted at Sheesh Mahal garden as well, was also found in Rohini’s Japanese Park. Such diversity in butterfly species at parks across urban areas, conservationists said, is notable as they had not expected these species would be spotted in such parts of the city.
Sohail Madan, centre manager at Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and one of the lead members carrying out the census, said, “This time, the survey in urban parks yielded surprising results. Some unusual butterflies were spotted here, which were not even found in the sanctuaries. This indicates that remnants of historical butterfly population are still in these areas and hence these need to be conserved and remedial measures need to be taken so that they are not lost.”
Of the 75 species recorded dur- ing the count, 67 were spotted at urban parks maintained by civic agencies and RWAS such as Sheesh Mahal garden in Shalimar Bagh, Japanese Park in Rohini, southwest Delhi’s Dwarka, outer Delhi’s Nihal Vihar park in Nangloi and Sunder Nursery in south Delhi’s Nizamuddin.
The survey, conservationists said, was conducted across 51 locations, of which only 15 were protected forests and biodiversity parks while the rest were city parks. Last year, only 17 locations were surveyed of which only a few were city parks. The increase in location count was done as part of a plan to develop a contiguous butterfly corridor from Asola Bhatti and Yamuna Biodiversity Park.
“It was significant to cover northwest Delhi, and the census reveals that the area should not be left out from conservation efforts. This year, we focused on city parks, in particular, northwest Delhi, to give a better reflection of butterfly population in the city. Based on observations made in the past that there was no systemic record of how many species are there outside sanctuaries and since northwest Delhi does not have a protected forest even in the vicinity, it was important that this area was studied,” Rajesh Chaudhary, assistant professor, department of biomedical Sciences, Acharya Narendra Dev College, Delhi University and a census team member, said.
If not conserved, Chaudhary said, the remaining butterfly population in these parks may get eradicated.
The team has also recommended remedial measures such as planting of native trees, leaving some patch in parks wild and banning use of insecticides to the forest department to increase the population of these species.
Faiyaz Khudsar, lead scientist, Biodiversity Parks Programme, said, “By studying butterflies, citizens can contribute to the body of scientific work done on crucial subjects like global climate change.