Industrial farms and abandoned ones are both bad for butterflies. Researchers in Spain are trying to combat the trend, one "micro-reserve" at a time.
Each week for the last 25 summers, biologist Constantí Stefanescu has walked a line through a series of fields in Catalonia, counting butterflies. On a sun-beaten day last July, near where the Pyrenees Mountains slip into the Mediterranean Sea, he stepped into what had once been the most butterfly-rich meadow of them all. In the early years, he could easily count 50 or 60 silver-studded blue butterflies here, along with many other pollinators, all drawn by a carpet of lupine, clover, and other wildflowers.
Europe's butterflies are vanishing along with its small farms
Each week for the last 25 summers, biologist Constantí Stefanescu has walked a line through a series of fields in Catalonia, counting butterflies. On a sun-beaten day last July, near where the Pyrenees Mountains slip into the Mediterranean Sea, he stepped into what had once been the most butterfly-rich meadow of them all. In the early years, he could easily count 50 or 60 silver-studded blue butterflies here, along with many other pollinators, all drawn by a carpet of lupine, clover, and other wildflowers.
Europe's butterflies are vanishing along with its small farms