Australia’s second largest butterfly, the Richmond Birdwing, is on the endangered list, but thanks to the work of locals restoring its habitat Tamborine Mountain has become a haven for them.
“They are prevalent on the mountain because of the number of plants here and the good establishment of habitat,” local butterfly conservationist and educator, Josephine Romeo explained.
“The awareness of the butterfly here means a lot of people have vines in their backyard. I’ve got vines in my backyard that are 30 years old.”
Josephine said in the last five years Tamborine Mountain Landcare has planted over 800 Birdwing vines on Shelf Road.
She said three factors impact the butterfly: loss of habitat, use of pesticides and insecticides and fragmented corridors and because they only lay a single egg on each plant, athey need a lot of plants to reproduce.
“Tamborine Mountain has limited pest control compared to the coast, for example, where they spray aerially for mosquitos,” she said.
“People up here are aware of pesticides and are greener focused.”
The butterflies depend on corridors to reproduce which run from the Richmond River in Northern NSW to the Sunshine Coast and need to be able to fly along these corridors to mate with butterflies in different areas.
However, development has meant the plants along the corridors have become fragmented making breeding difficult.
“The idea is to get people to plant Richmond Birdwings in their backyard to again create the corridors,” Josephine said.
“Butterflies live on the hills and there is a lot of old growth vines in the forest here making their habitat largely untouched.”
Not only does the Richmond Birdwing butterfly need the vine, Pararistolochia praevenosa, it also needs flowers, particularly red ones for nectar, so planting flowers in your garden will encourage butterflies.
More information and sightings can be reported to the Richmond Birdwing Conservation Network and the vine can be bought from the Botanic Garden, online at Gold Coast Butterflies or by contacting Tamborine Mountain Landcare.
