Archive for NEEPS North East Eco-friendly People's Site
|
Townie
|
Cabbage whites under threatCabbage whites under threat
| Quote: | Two butterfly species which for generations were the commonest and most familiar in Britain, the "cabbage whites", have now gone into steep decline, figures show. Pesticides are thought to have slashed the numbers of the large and small whites, whose caterpillars have chomped their way through untold millions of cabbages and cauliflowers to the eternal annoyance of gardeners. They are the only British butterflies to have been considered a serious pest.
Fifty years ago, they were the best-known of our species, partly because they were ever-present in vegetable gardens, having adapted to human habitation almost as well as house sparrows. Their numbers were extraordinarily high, and swarms of them, sometimes huge flocks from the Continent, could run into millions. In August 1911, for example, a Professor Oliver saw a gigantic cloud of large whites in Sutton Fen in Norfolk; he estimated the numbers to be six million insects over two acres. In 1846 there was a record of large swarms of small whites which obscured the sun in Kent.
Now, however, the picture has changed dramatically: the large flocks have vanished, with both butterflies declining all over Europe. New figures from the Butterfly Monitoring Scheme show the large white declined in the UK by one-third between 1976 and 2008, while the small white dropped in numbers by one-fifth. |
Source : http://www.independent.co.uk/envi...-whites-under-threat-1666844.html
|
Maria
|
We had loads here last year chomping at my cabbages n broccoli. Will have to plant some extras for them this year, away from the brassica patch, so they can multiply and come back to haunt me next year. 
|
mike and louise
|
They also eat nastursums, or they have eaten mine, so perhaps a bit could be set aside for tom thumbs as a sacrifice and the cabages can still have the catterpillars removed.
|
Maria
|
Yep, they were all over the nasturtiums too - but I found most of them on the purple flowering broccoli - they must have good taste. So do FMN's chickens, who got extra wriggly treats when I visited. 
|
Smooth Hound
|
maybe thats the way of looking at it, if you pick them of f once a day for chicke food  and leave some on a few plants to keep them going for next yrs supply 
|
Smooth Hound
|
although this is the wild section, so they would make a very good source of protien for us
|
|