National park invites volunteers to help with butterfly census

In a very short period of time, the park administration has seen its registration list filled, with 192 people having signed up to spend one day conducting a count of the butterflies in the Yangmingshan area, said Lin Yung-fa, superintendent of the national park.

The volunteers will conduct the census surveys July 8, 11, 22 and 25, with 48 people working on each day, according to park administration officials.

They will be guided and assisted during their efforts by park rangers and specialists from the non-profit Butterfly Conservation Society of Taiwan. “The survey results will help the park administration to build a databank on butterflies in the area, of which there are at least 168 different species,” Lin said.

According to Chen Chien-chih, founder of the Butterfly Conservation Society of Taiwan and a professor at the Taipei Municipal University of Education, only a few of the 168 species found in the Yangmingshan National Park are migratory.

One of them is the chestnut tiger, which usually appears in Taiwan, particularly in the Yangmingshan area, in spring and summer, with its numbers reaching a peak of around 100,000 during June, Chen said.

After reaching a population peak, the chestnut tigers disappear all of a sudden, with experts still unsure of exactly where they go, he added.

“Some say they go to Japan and some say they migrate to other parts of Taiwan,” he noted.

“The census data might help answer questions like the ones surrounding the chestnut tiger,” he added.

Subscribe to The China Post and save 25%. Click here

SharePrintEmail

Write a Comment

Enter your comments - 3000 characters max

Type in image code

Submit

 Receive China Post promos Respond to this email