HEREFORDSHIRE is giving a helping hand to a rare woodland butterfly.
A three-year conservation project led by the Forestry Commission and Butterfly Conservation is focusing on the wood white, one of the UK’s most rapidly declining butterflies.
Herefordshire remains a relative stronghold for the species and a grant of more than £88,000 from the SITA Trust is helping to safeguard its future in the county.
Coppicing and cutting back vegetation gives the wood white caterpillar’s main sources of food (bird’s foot trefoil and meadow vetchling) a chance to flourish. The project will seek to restore the butterfly’s natural habitat and monitor its numbers.
Over the next three years the project will be rolled out across eight Forestry Commission woods in Herefordshire.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here