Butterfly habitats in the Salzburger Lungau
The last days we have been visiting potential habitats for butterflies in the Salzburger Lungau together with private landowners and the Austrian state forestry (ÖBF). Currently, we have two projects on butterflies: One for the conservation of butterflies (mainly diurnal species) in Austria, called “Schmetterlingsreich“, and the international LIFE Apollo2020 project together with Poland and Czech Republic for conservation of Parnassius apollo.
The landowners were very openminded for our projects and we, especially our butterfly expert Otto Feldner, described them what could be potential habitat measures that have positive effects on butterflies. These are for example removal of bushes and small trees, replanting of foodplants and hostplants and controlled grazing for some weeks with sheeps and goats to keep the habitats open and prevent them from overgrowing.
We found suitable habitats in the Muhrtal and Tweng for P. apollo and also for other butterfly species like Euphydryas sp., Erebia sp. or Lycenidae. We already obseverd some caterpillars and butterflies of different species, so hopefully, populations will profit quickly from our planned habitat measures. In accordance with the landowners we will start the first steps this summer. We are very happy about this successful steps and looking forward to the first actions!
