1. Butterfly Monitoring: experiences with citizen scientists
Chris van Swaay,
De Vlinderstichting / Dutch Butterfly Conservation
Butterfly Conservation Europe
Statistics Netherlands (CBS) Thousands of volunteers

2. Why Butterfly Monitoring?
Butterflies are good indicators for biodiversity, attractive, easy to count;
After birds the second group that offers possibilities for large scale trend detection with the help of volunteers, both on a local, national and European level.
And it’s fun!

3. Why volunteers?
Counts made by volunteers help the conservation of butterflies directly by:
Collection of local data on changes in the trend of butterflies, which can be used immediately for conservation at the local level;
Combined on a higher level the results can be used to in nature conservation of a state or country;
On a European scale it helps directing conservation efforts.

4. The start
Ernie Pollard started the first BMS in the UK in 1976 4

5. Count a transect of 5 m wide in sections of 50m

6. Simple method: Counts are made in a 5x5x5m box6

7. Online recording 7

8. Easy access to all your transects8

9. Easy and fast input 9

10. From national trends to a European trend
+ 9 other countries

11. European species trends

12. European Grassland Butterfly Indicator

13. Volunteers
With the help of volunteers it is possible to do butterfly monitoring in an affordable way;
It gives a basis for the protection of butterflies in our society: “Our butterflies in the nature reserve next to our village are doing bad/better/well!”
But most of all: it is great fun!!!

14. How to find volunteers

15. How to keep volunteers Butterfly magazines Butterfly days Websites
Take them seriously

16. Make work easy: a manual to support the volunteers
Detailed description of the transects and counts;
What to do when there are problems?
Each year a report with results is distributed to all participants

17. Keep volunteers motivated: annual report to the recorders
Results
News
Features

18. Example Catalunya >50 sites Rich in species
Catalunya takes own responsibility
Financial support from Junta

19. Catalan butterfly monitoring magazine Cynthia

20. Number of transects in NL

21. Overview over German butterfly transects
(November 2007)

22. Butterfly pictures
Butterfly pictures taken by transect walkers; ordered by geographical region (available online)

23. Quality of the recorders and their data
Strict controll of the data
Check distribution with atlas data
Check of flight period
With online recording this can be done immediately
Paper input is checked in winter
Support and ‘controll of the controllers’ by CBS (Statistics Netherlands)

24. Special attention to difficult species

25. Butterfly Monitoring available and routinely collected
1976: start of the first Butterfly Monitoring Scheme in the UK
Well founded by many scientific papers
Now at least 3000 transects in 15 countries
Every year our European volunteers count once around the world ( km)!
The Dutch BMS alone generates records each year

26. Butterfly Monitoring Spatial coverage
New countries join in every year
Most of them done on a routine basis