Extinction Advent calendar – Day 12
The Black-veined White Butterfly was first listed as a British species in 1667. This stunning butterfly became extinct in the British Isles around 1925.
Sir Winston Churchill attempted to reintroduce Black-Veined Whites in the gardens of his house in Kent after the Second World War. He enlisted the help of BBC radio’s ‘butterfly man’ Hugh Newman, and had caterpillars kept inside bags tied to the branches of Hawthorn trees, one of their food plants. When Hugh Newman’s instructions came to ‘remove the bags’, Churchill’s gardeners removed the bags and burned them.
Oops.
Here are my photographs of a Black-Veined White – but not in Britain.
We live in wildlife poverty.