Blaise , well said ! And love the "against the tide " thinking that often comes from you . Apart from life cycles and the perfect picture , breeding butterflies could be just for the sake of...hmm ...breeding them ! We had a captive enclosure ( fully netted ) where we shifted caterpillars onto potted plants - an excercise to reduce mortality rates . We neither had the time to study them much nor we photodocumented them much ( having a salaried job to keep ). Photographs of the freshly eclosed butterflies were possible only if they chose to pupate out on Sundays ! Of course that's stopped now . The enclosure collapsed in the monsoons and we had difficulty sustaining it financially ( workers required to clean the area ,get fresh plants or leaves , etc ) . Hopefully with some funds gathered from our "Breakfast with Butterflies" events , we will get the structure up again. If there are students wanting to undertake studies , we would be happy to provide the infrastructure and restart the program again - only condition : the butterflies fly away to freedom ! Warm regards Yashodan Heblekar Butterfly Conservatory Of Goa www.bcogoa.org
________________________________ From: Blaise <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, November 27, 2011 9:11 PM Subject: Re: [ButterflyIndia] Raising caterpillars Hi All, I am noticing all arguments going in the same direction..... A few questions hv crossed my mind... Was wondering why no one has thought it necessary to encourage newcomers, students ect., to rear catipillars either for life-cycle studies or other research??? So what if a few experts hv already done the lifecycles??? Is ther no more scope for learning anything more???? Is it that there is a shortage of cats??? What is the ratio of eggs laid to the number of Adults produced in the wild?? Do we really believe that newcomers or researchers will collect so many cats for whatever reason, that it will make an impact on the number of butterflies around us ??? Is not habitat destruction and use of pesticides the main cause fr the shortage of larval food plants, which wud cause a larger decrease in cat / butterfly numbers than collection of a few cats fr life-cycle studies or other related research.... Is it that cat rearing should be left to a few experts only or people who hv published papers??? Did not the experts kill a few cats during their various life cycle or other research studies before they became experts???? This could go on n on.... the idea of posting this is not to antigonise anyone, I was just wondering if I was the only one who thinks this way.... then probably I am different..... :-) TC, Blaise -- Enjoy
