Castle Cattle get instructions from Space to prepare for the Return of the Duke!
A hand-picked herd of English Longhorn Cattle on the Grimsthorpe Castle Estate in Lincolnshire have been equipped with GPS collars and set to work grazing a site on the estate where a rare butterfly once lived in order to recover the habitat for a potential re-introduction.
The Duke of Burgundy butterfly is one of the most at-risk butterfly species in Britain. In the past it could be found across Lincolnshire and the east midlands but over time with changes to land use, habitat destruction for development and a steady increase in light-pollution, the Duke of Burgundy gradually died out. Its last outpost in the East Midlands was, for many years, a discrete site on the Grimsthorpe Castle estate but even there the numbers gradually dwindled until it died out about three years ago.
Now, with the benefit of a lot more scientific knowledge about this rare species, Grimsthorpe Castle is working with Butterfly Conservation Lincolnshire branch volunteers to restore the habitat to the point where the Duke of Burgundy could be re-introduced to the site. This restoration includes targeted grazing of the site by rugged cattle to control the grasses and scrub and allow the naturally occurring cow-slips to recolonise the area. The cowslip is the food plant for the Duke of Burgundy caterpillars but will only flourish if the grasses and other plants are grazed off at the right time of the year to allow for seed setting and germination.
Jim Handley, Head of Gardens and Landscape at Grimsthorpe Castle said: “This is an area of rugged hillside with lots of scrubby clumps which are ideal for sheltering the caterpillars as they grow in the early spring, but we couldn’t possible get electric fencing up so, with a grant from Butterfly Conservation, we bought GPS controlled collars to teach our cattle to graze precise parts of the site at exactly the right time of the year. That, combined with our estate team and volunteers pruning back the scrub and bushes, is really restoring the area to the kind of habitat the butterflies need”.
The hard work is showing signs of success as Dr Ian Paterson from Butterfly Conservation Lincolnshire explained: “This is the third year we have been working on the site and this year we did see the cowslips beginning to reappear. We will carry on with this work next year and the following spring we should be in a position to asses whether the site is ready to accept the first caterpillars from a Butterfly Conservation donor reserve in the south.”
In the mean time the cattle keep getting their instructions from space as they, and Jim, look forward to the day the “Duke” may return to Grimsthorpe.
