Butterfly Translocation with B5 Project:

The boulder copper butterfly used to live across Canterbury, mainly by braided rivers living in its main food source Muehlenbeckia axillaris. With the huge loss of habitat, the boulder coppers numbers have rapidly declined and are now only found sparingly in a few locations in Canterbury.

Through the B5 Project, Burnside Primary School has been working hard to bring back the boulder copper butterfly to Christchurch.

I was lucky to be invited to join them alongside students from Ao Tāwhiti for some capture and release efforts this week. I loved learning from the students about how they find and capture the butterflies, they shared their tips and tricks with me and built me up to be the best butterfly tracker I could be!

The tuakana-teina mentorship between older and younger students I experienced was beautiful, and they all worked together seemlessly to capture each individual. They taught me how to identify the male vs female butterflies, and shared their passions for the B5 Project. These butterflies were released into the new habitat at the Climate Action Campus ready for their egg-laying season.

Ngā mihi nui to Burnside Primary School and Climate Action Campus Ōtautahi!