30 April 2008

An email to Julietta Edgar, head of special stamps, Royal Mail, said:

“There is mounting concern, anger and bafflement over the fact that the Royal Mail has issued a set of stamps with images of dead butterflies and a dead moth on them.”

It added: “We here at Butterfly Conservation have been trying to steer individuals away from the practice of pinning dead butterflies and moths for years, and yet you seem to want to encourage it.

“You wouldn’t issue stamps with image of dead birds or dead cows on them, so why dead butterflies?

“These images are nauseating and are the very opposite of conservation.

“What makes the error all the more devastating is that there are hundreds of fantastic images of live butterflies and moths.”

Butterfly Conservation support the preservation of artifacts like those held at the Natural History Museum. But conservation should be linked to live creatures.

Buglife, a conservation charity which embraces all insects, says it shares Butterfly Conservation's unhappiness about the stamps. 

Butterfly Conservation is currently awaiting a reply.