ISLANDERS are being urged to help assess the health of Jersey’s environment by counting butterflies for just 15 minutes.
The annual Big Butterfly Count returns from Friday 17 July to Sunday 9 August.
Participants across the UK and Channel Islands are encouraged to log which insects can be seen in their gardens and local green spaces.
The count, which is coordinated by the Butterfly Conservation charity, has become the world’s largest survey of the species.
Emily Wagdin, outreach training and communications officer at the Jersey Biodiversity Centre, explained that butterflies play an important part in the Island’s ecosystem as both pollinators and components of the food chain.
“A lot of their life cycle, whether that is being a caterpillar or whether that is when they are a fully-fledged adult butterfly, depends on certain plants being available in our ecosystem,” she said.
“If we see really sudden drops in our butterfly population, we can probably guess that something is changing because they indicate to us the state of our environment in some way.”
The Jersey Butterfly Monitoring Scheme is a citizen scheme run and financed by the government, with all data returned to the Jersey Biodiversity Centre.
The scheme encourages volunteers to walk a variety of set paths across the Island from 1 April to 31 September each year.
Miss Wagdin explained that butterfly numbers have fluctuated over the past 20 years.
“We saw an upward curve for a little while, and then we’ve kind of entered a bit of a decline over the last five to ten years,” she noted.
The Big Butterfly Count provides a record of how many butterflies have been spotted in different areas across the UK and Channel Islands, forming a key part of planning, policy and decision-making.
“I think recording across all of the Channel Islands is so important because our environment and our ecosystem are so unique,” said Miss Wagdin.
Participants are encouraged to take just 15 minutes to look out for butterflies and moths, and then record which species they see.
Sightings can be submitted via the Big Butterfly Count website or free app.
