PRESS RELEASE MARCH 2010

"South Africa's 1st Butterfly Census Weekend"
 
South Africa's very first Butterfly Census Weekend (BCW) will take place on the weekend of 24-25 April 2010. Anyone can participate - there will be Beginner and Expert categories. Beginners will survey the 50 most common species that occur within the province where the census is conducted. Pamphlets and lists of these common species will be made available to assist Beginners in the field. The BCW will be an exciting new event for south Africa and we encourage all members of the public to participate.
 
The aim of the BCW is to collect data from the same particular locality over time, so that long-term trends of butterflies in that locality can be monitored and the data used towards understanding the impacts of land use and climate change. It is hoped that the BCW becomes an annual or biannual event in South Africa. Similar butterfly counts have been taking place annually in the UK (since 1976) and North America (for the past 35 years). Currently, the only other similar annual event in South Africa is BirdLife's Birding Big Day, which has been running for about 25 years.
 
All butterfly species observed by teams (including school teams) over the weekend at any specific locality are noted and counted. The BCW also includes localities in Lesotho and Swaziland. A locality may be your garden, a park, farm, nature reserve, etc. For more information, rules and to register your teams and locality for the BCW (registration is free), please visit: http://sabca.adu.org.za/bcw.php
 
This event forms part of the Southern African Butterfly Conservation Assessment project, a joint project of the Animal Demography Unit (University of Cape Town), the Lepidopterists' Society of Africa and the South African National Biodiversity Institute. All data collected during this event will be used for the butterfly conservation assessments which SABCA will be finalizing by the end of 2010.