South African Butterfly Conservation Assessment

PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

Previous atlas projects for birds, frogs and reptiles, show that the public can play an extremely useful role in species conservation. Similarly, the public can contribute greatly towards butterfly conservation. Anyone can become involved with SABCA in any of three ways:

1) Submit photos to the Virtual Museum

Even if you do not know your butterflies, you can contribute greatly to SABCA, provided you have a digital camera and access to email. SABCA urges members of the public to take digital photographs of the butterflies (at any of their life stages i.e. caterpillars, pupae or as adult butterflies) they see in gardens, on holiday and those killed on the roads. Together with the details of where they were taken, the date and the observer's name, these photographic records can be submitted to the project's "Virtual Museum". Records that are of good quality will be entered into the butterfly database and will be available for use as an educational resource to all.

Here are the 7 easy steps on how to participate:

• STEP 1
  Find a wild butterfly, caterpillar or pupae. Do NOT kill it or harm it in any way. Do NOT remove it from the wild or transport it away from its natural habitat. If the animal is already dead, e.g., a roadkill, it can still be useful.
  NB: SABCA covers South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland only. However, you may submit photos from anywhere in Africa.
• STEP 2
  Record the exact location of the specimen. This can be done preferably with the aid of a global positioning system (GPS) or, alternatively, a good map (a 1:50 000 or 1:250 000 government map). The location MUST be recorded as follows:
      degree, minutes and seconds South, e.g. 34 10 55 S (the latitude)
      degrees, minutes and seconds East, e.g. 18 33 27 E (the longitude)
  Please ensure that the coordinate values are given correctly. To learn more about coordinates and their formats, please click here.
  Please make sure that the datum of your GPS is set to WGS84, the standard adopted in South Africa.
  NB: Always record the southern coordinates (latitude) first and the eastern coordinates (longitude) second.
  NB: The degrees and minutes must be absolutely accurate and the seconds estimated to the nearest whole second. Degrees and minutes alone, or a grid cell reference code, are NOT enough!
  NB: Use seconds, not hundredths of a minute. Set your GPS readout accordingly.
  NB: It is critically important that this information be recorded accurately because the record is useless without its location, and positively misleading if the location is incorrectly recorded. If you do not have a GPS or appropriate map, do not guess the coordinates. Rather give a detailed description in the locality field (step 3) so that we can assign a grid cell to your record.
  
• STEP 3
  Describe the location in words, as detailed as possible:
  For example: "Vrekbok Farm, 20 km north of Pofadder, Northern Cape".
  This information allows us to cross-check the accuracy of the coordinates.
  
• STEP 4
  Record the date. There is a separate field for year, month and day. Please record this information as figures (numbers) only.
  For example:
  1972 (i.e. the year)
  04 (i.e. the month of April)
  23 (i.e. the 23rd day)
  This must be the date of finding and photographing the animal, NOT the date of processing of the photograph or submission of the record. The time of day is not necessary (but you may enter this information in the notes section).
  
• STEP 5
  Take pictures of the animal: Get as close as possible while keeping the picture sharp (in focus).
  Some tips on how and when to photograph butterflies:
  - Butterflies are best photographed in the early morning, or when it is cool or overcast.
  - To get a photo, creep up slowly on the butterfly.
  - Avoid your shadow from passing over the butterfly because they are very sensitive to movement.
  - A zoom lens on your camera will be very useful.
  - A photo can also be taken through a viewing scope.
  - Try and take photos of both the upper and under sides of the butterfly wings. The undersides are usually most important for identification purposes.
  NB: Pictures that are badly out of focus cannot be used.
  NB: All picture files must be in JPG (jpeg) format.
  NB: If your picture files are larger than 1 megabyte each, please reduce their size, otherwise they may cause the email not to send or receive properly. Start by cropping away unnecessary background, but please do not reduce the image size too much - it is difficult to ID some butterflies in small photos. A freeware programme that can aid you with this is Irfanview, which you can download for free from here: http://www.irfanview.com
  NB: Your photographs will appear on the project website and will not be subject to copyright, i.e. people will be free to download and use them, with appropriate acknowledgment.
  
• STEP 6
  Send an email to SABCA: Attach your jpeg files, FOR ONE INDIVIDUAL ANIMAL ONLY, to the message (do not combine photos taken at different localities or on different dates, these must be submitted as separate records). The email message MUST be according to the following format (including the info in the square brackets, because it is read automatically by a computer programme). Cut and paste the following lines into your email and replace the examples (outside the square brackets) with your own information. The [begin] and [end] lines remain unchanged.
  Example:
  [begin]
  [SABCA]
  [observer name] Botha W.
  [coordinates latitude] 24 34 13 S
  [coordinates longitude] 27 23 42 E
  [locality] farm Doornhoek; Thabazimbi district.
  [closest town] Thabazimbi
  [province] Limpopo
  [country] South Africa
  [year] 2005
  [month] 08
  [day] 27
  [number of photos] 2
  [notes] There were many butterflies of this type flying about, and they were feeding on honeysuckle. It was overcast.
  [end]
  ALL of the information listed above MUST be provided (except for "closest town" and "notes" which are optional), otherwise your photos cannot be used. The Project Coordinator will acknowledge your submission by email.
  The address for photo submissions is sabca@adu.org.za
  NB: Do NOT send prints by post. It is too labour intensive to scan prints - we can only use digital photos. If you do the scanning yourself and email us the jpeg files, that's fine.
  NB: Send no more than three pictures of any particular animal - select only your best pics.
  NB: For every individual animal photographed, send a separate email. This is important because it avoids confusion between animals, and between the coordinates, dates and locality information for each animal.
  NB: The [closet town] field is optional. If you have an idea what is the closest town to where you took the photo, please note it down. This will help us to find the coordinates for your record if they are missing.
  NB: The [notes] field is optional. Here you can send us any interesting information on the animal's behaviour, foodplant, abundance, the climate, time of day, altitude, etc.
  NB: Please provide the observer name in the following format: surname followed by the initials of the observer
  
• STEP 7
  Check the Virtual Museum website. Check for acknowledgement of your record and an identification of the animal. This should be available on the relevant page of this site within 30 days of submission.
  NB: Do NOT email the Project Coordinator to request feedback about your submissions - check the website. Only email if you have a major problem that is not addressed by the information provided on the website.
  WE LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR PARTICIPATION IN SABCA!
  Cut and paste the following template into your email, and add your information as per the example above:
  [begin]
  [SABCA]
  [observer name]
  [coordinates latitude]
  [coordinates longitude]
  [locality]
  [closest town]
  [province]
  [country]
  [year]
  [month]
  [day]
  [number of photos]
  [notes]
  [end]

2) Join a field trip as a volunteer

Volunteers can join the SABCA team on field trips into previously poorly studied areas to collect butterflies and information about butterfly habits and habitats. The first butterfly field trips will begin around August 2007, when the butterfly season starts. More information on this closer to the time.

3) Contribute data from own private butterfly collection

People with private butterfly collections are encouraged to contribute their data to SABCA. Currently, there are five different methods for data capture - click here to download the document specifying the methods. Please also contact the project coordinator in this regard.