11 March 2010

Contractors and advisors from Butterfly Conservation are helping to open up areas of scrub and woodland around Holgate's Caravan Park in Silverdale, Lancashire in order to help protect a threatened species of butterfly: The Duke of Burgundy.

Conservationists are particularly concerned about this stunning butterfly. Once a common sight in woodland clearings, The Duke is now at its lowest level since monitoring began. At the start of the century there were about 200 colonies in the country. This number has now more than halved - and most colonies that remain are small. The Silverdale site is home to one of only four colonies in the Arnside and Silverdale Area Of Natural Beauty.

Martin Wain, Conservation Officer on the Morecambe Bay Project has been providing advice to the managers of the park. "We are delighted to be working with Holgate's Caravan Park and that they are very interested in helping us to protect this beautiful spring butterfly. Work we have carried out so far includes coppicing and scrub clearance on an area of rough limestone grassland which we know to be good for the Primrose leaves that the Duke caterpillars feed on. The work we are doing to help the Duke of Burgundy will also help butterflies such as the High Brown Fritillary butterfly and many other wildlife species. We are hoping to continue our partnership with Holgate's who have also been very active this year in managing their woodland for butterflies with a Forestry Commission grant."

Mike Turner, Managing Director of Holgate's said "we are really pleased that our park is not only a haven for our visitors but also for rare wildlife, and we are very happy to be pioneering a last stand for this lovely little rare butterfly. We are hoping that all this work that we are doing for the Duke, and in our woodland for other butterfly species will mean that we have a brilliant butterfly summer ahead."