'10 butterfly road protection scheme begins

Purple crow butterflies will return from southern to northern Taiwan in late March and early April after winter, said Chen Chih-hsiu, deputy head of the transport ministry's Taiwan Area National Freeway Bureau.

The bureau will continue the measures it implemented the last two years, sealing off sections of freeway when the number of migratory butterflies surpasses 300 per minute, he told a press conference.

In addition, the bureau will again install a four-meter-high protection net and extend its length from 660 meters last year to 860 meters, according to a statement from the bureau.

“The safety measures have greatly reduced the average death rate of purple crow butterflies (on the section of the freeway), from 3 percent in 2008 to 0.3-0.4 percent in 2009,” Chen said.

Between March 20 and April 11, the bureau will also launch activities to raise public awareness of butterfly protection, he said.

Yang Ping-shih, an entomology professor at National Taiwan University involved in the project, said that efforts over the past three years to protect the purple crow butterflies will be shared at an international seminar in September.

He said at the conference that the United States also has a unique butterfly migration, but that the route there did not require flying over a freeway, unlike the situation in Taiwan.

He and other experts have spent six to seven years tracking the routes of purple crow butterflies in Taiwan using self-developed methods.

“Butterfly migration can be seen worldwide, but not on a regular basis” said Chan Chia-lung, a butterfly expert who also attended the press conference.

“Taiwan's purple crow butterfly is unique in that it migrates during winter, while most of the butterflies will not do so as they die in winter,” the expert said.

He said that the recorded migration of purple crow butterflies in Taiwan dates back to 1971.

Taiwan's efforts to protect the butterflies have gained the attention of foreign media such as the BBC, CNN and National Geographic, he said.

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