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Butterflies in an Italian Eden |
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By Francesca Colombo*
Two
Italian bird experts have created a paradise in the province of
Pavia for another type of flying creature: butterflies -- the hardest
hit by pollution and changes in farming over the past 30 years.
Tierramérica paid them a visit.
PAVIA, Italy, Sep 11 (Tierramérica) - In 10
hectares of their private gardens, two ornithologists, a father-son
team, maintain a paradise for butterflies, in the northern Italian
province of Pavia.
At the Oasis Sant'Alessio con Vialone, Harry Salamon and his son
Giulio are doing their part to protect these insects and other animals
facing extinction. Both men live and work at the site. With their
assistants, the human total is 25.
In this garden, they study butterflies in particular to find ways
to help them survive, as they are the insects most affected by pollution
and changes in the agricultural sector over the past 30 years.
Farming with chemical products and toxic substances destroys the
plants that the butterflies need for food, and they are left unable
to fly long distances, or to easily move from one field to the next,
or from one forest to another.
But many animals live in the Oasis. In addition to the butterflies,
there are peregrine falcons one can observe in flight, as well as
toucans, macaws, and European squirrels.
The Salamons care for the different species and sometimes find them
mates so they can reproduce. They have several protection projects
under way, including reinserting the animals in their native habitats.
Since 1978, they have released 200 white storks (Ciconia ciconia)
and have helped protect the Przewalski horse (Equus caballus przewalskii),
of which there were just a few dozen in the middle of the last century
-- today there are about 2,000.
"We found that in this tiny space we could have an extraordinary
piece of nature and that many animal species could live autonomously.
We recreated the plants and the water -- the rest the animals did
themselves. We bought some in Europe, and we also received some
that arrived injured. We cure them, we include them in the reproduction
project, and their offspring are released," Salamon explained to
Tierramérica.
This work began as a hobby for him 35 years ago, when he inherited
the land. But then it turned into a true passion.
"The Oasis Sant'Alessio is a unique place in Italy and the world,
because it was built from nothing, in cornfields. It is an approach
between zoos and nature preserves, an idea to be exported to other
countries," zoologist Armando Gariboldi, former director of the
Italian Bird Protection League, said in a Tierramérica interview.
But even though it is a new conservation model, it is limited by
space. "There are too many animals concentrated on a small plot,"
Gariboldi said.
The Oasis is home to tropical and European butterfly species alike.
The tropical species are purchased from nurseries in Costa Rica,
where there are 3,000 diurnal species and 12,000 nocturnal -- of
the 130,000 types of butterflies found worldwide.
From that Costa Rican country they import 1,500 butterflies (from
75 cents to five dollars each) each month in the spring and autumn.
The tropical butterflies are kept in a big garden, covered by a
fine netting. Red, yellow, blue and orange, they fly freely from
one spot to the next, even alighting on the tourists or scientists
who come from all over to see them. The butterflies land on flowers,
drink the nectar, then flutter away.
The morpho butterfly (Morpho menelaus), the atlas moth (Attacus
atlas), and the heliconius or caligo (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae)
reproduce in one corner of the oasis, as if they were in a tropical
zone of Latin America. In a sort of incubator that maintains the
temperature at 27 degrees Celsius and 80 percent humidity, a caterpillar
will transform into a chrysalis and then into a butterfly. The entire
metamorphosis can take five weeks.
The tropical butterflies of the Italian Oasis do not flutter their
fragile wings outside this refuge -- they would die if they were
far from this ideal habitat.
But the European butterflies, like the swallowtail (Papilio machaon)
or the cabbage white (Pieris brassicae), are among the 276 species
found naturally in Italy.
The Salamons see their Oasis as the environmental ideal for the
reproduction of butterflies, which live an average of 30 days.
Nevertheless, Mauro Fasolo, director of the animal biology department
at the University of Pavia, said in a Tierramérica interview that
although the Oasis "is very useful for educational objectives...
it is better to protect animals in the wild, not in captivity."
The Salamons don't receive any government assistance. They finance
their 642,000-dollar operating budget by charging 13 dollars admission
and renting out an event hall in the castle located on the grounds.
There is also a family inheritance that is running out. Now they
are trying to find new sources of revenue.
"Butterflies are a resource that live in harmony with nature without
consuming it. We help them to grow in this climate, with our plants,
because it is one way of protecting nature," says Salamon.
* Francesca Colombo is a Tierramérica contributor. |
