An “abundance” of butterflies has taken over the West Australian town of Nannup, delighting visitors and locals in the South West.<\/p>\n
But the presence of the monarch butterflies in the regional community is bittersweet, as experts warn the insects are thriving on invasive weeds that are growing near the town.<\/p>\n
Residents have been seeing swarms of butterflies for about two months.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Swarms of butterflies are seen in Nannup. (Supplied: Faye Arcaro)<\/p>\n
The butterflies became famous after thousands of visitors flocked to Nannup for a yearly flower and garden festival, and excitedly shared pictures on social media.<\/p>\n
They included Emma Brown, who travelled with her family to Nannup for the festival.<\/p>\n
“It’s beautiful, it’s like spring has sprung here in Nannup,” she said.<\/p>\n
“There’s an abundance of them and walking around the street, you just can’t avoid them.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The butterflies have been hanging around the tulips. (Supplied)<\/p>\n
“At the start of the street, there was a whole tree full of them \u2026 at first we saw one and then we saw 100 of them.”<\/p>\n
Emma, Amelia and Paul Brown\u00a0enjoyed their recent visit to Nannup. (ABC South West: Jacqueline Lynch)<\/p>\n
Festival organiser Maggie Longmore said the butterflies had been a massive attraction.<\/p>\n
“It’s very good for tourism in Nannup,” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Maggie Longmore says the butterflies had been the talk of the town. (ABC South West: Jacqueline Lynch)<\/p>\n
“A lot of people don’t see butterflies often and then to see them in these mass proportions is just amazing.<\/p>\n
“We’re thrilled and we’re thrilled with the amount of people who have come down.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The influx of butterflies has been a drawcard for locals and visitors. (ABC South West: Jacqueline Lynch)<\/p>\n
Swarms ‘bittersweet’<\/p>\n
The butterflies have been drawn to the highly invasive narrow leaf cotton bush and a milkweed, which experts say have been spreading in nearby pine plantations and near the river.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The butterflies lay eggs on weeds such as narrow leaf cotton bush. (Department of Agriculture and Food of WA)<\/p>\n
Horticulturalist Faye Arcaro, who visited Nannup for the festival, said the weeds were highly invasive and could take over native species and crops.<\/p>\n
“A lot of the weedy plants grow on the banks and so the butterflies come in, lay their eggs on the milkweeds, the caterpillars eat the plants, turn into a cocoon and then hatch out as butterflies,” she said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Faye Arcaro says it is a bittersweet situation because the butterflies thrive on weeds. (Supplied: Katts Eye Photography)<\/p>\n
“[But] this particular plant is a declared weed.<\/p>\n
“It can take over natural spaces and it can get into crops.”<\/p>\n
She said it was a bittersweet situation for locals.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The West Australian town of Nannup has been taken over by monarch butterflies. (ABC South West: Jacqueline Lynch)<\/p>\n
Finding a balance<\/p>\n
While many butterflies flocked to the tulips planted all over Nannup, horticulturalist Colin Barlow said they could not survive without the weeds.<\/p>\n
“They can’t lay their eggs on a lot of the native bushes, they can use the pollen \u2026 but they can’t actually reproduce the caterpillars without the milkweed and the cotton bush,” Mr Barlow said.<\/p>\n
“It makes a phenomenal sight here but it does need to be managed.”<\/p>\n
Colin Barlow says the presence of milkweed has led to the arrival of the butterflies. (ABC South West: Jacqueline Lynch)<\/p>\n
Ms Longmore said she hoped some kind of balance could be struck.<\/p>\n
“The butterflies are so beautiful so perhaps there’s a happy medium where we keep a bit of the weeds to keep the butterflies,” she said.<\/p>\n
“The butterflies don’t seem to be going anywhere so please come down to Nannup and see the butterflies and the tulips and the bees.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Children have been captivated by the influx of butterflies. (ABC South West: Jacqueline Lynch)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An “abundance” of butterflies has taken over the West Australian town of Nannup, delighting visitors and locals in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":91138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[64,63,16033,67636,67640,75,67643,67644,13960,67641,67639,67635,67637,14160,128,67638,67642],"class_list":["post-91137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-butterflies","tag-butterfly","tag-cotton-bush","tag-environment","tag-flower","tag-flower-and-garden-festival","tag-garden","tag-gomphocarpus-fruticosus","tag-milkweed","tag-monarch-butterflies","tag-nannup","tag-plants","tag-science","tag-swan-plant","tag-weed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=91137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=91137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=91137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=91137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}