Extinct butterfly brought back to England from Belgium - Butterfly Conservation

A butterfly that went extinct in England more than 40 years ago has been successfully reintroduced to the woodlands where it last lived.

Butterfly Conservation has brought the Chequered Skipper back to Rockingham Forest in Northamptonshire using a donor population in Belgium.

The project started in 2018 and Butterfly Conservation has now declared the first five years a success.

The news comes after the charity declared a Butterfly Emergency in the UK in September following the worst-ever results of its annual Big Butterfly Count. Butterfly Conservation says this successful reintroduction shows one of the ways humans can start to undo years of damage to the natural environment.

Butterfly Conservation Chequered Skipper Project Manager Susannah O’Riordan said: "The results from this project are very exciting: we've never carried out a project exactly like this before and it was a real experiment, but it's been a success. We have brought this wonderful butterfly back to England. Our work can now help inspire and inform future reintroductions and all kinds of conservation projects - for butterflies and beyond.”

Up until the 1950s, the Chequered Skipper was still locally common in damp woods and fens in the East Midlands, including Rockingham Forest.

However it had started declining due to landowners changing the way they managed woodlands – planting conifer trees which created denser, darker areas, and stopping traditional coppice management which meant open spaces were no longer maintained.