THE STORY OF BHUTAN SWALLOWTAIL - THE NATIONAL BUTTERFLY OF BHUTAN

Noto Bene
This piece was written in 2011 and posted in my earlier blog which has since been removed from the internet. It is reproduced here without any changes. The insect later became the National butterfly of Bhutan. 

I am not an avid blogger and I blog only whenever I get time. I also do not intend to be involved in the so called discovery games and really hate to be a part of a popular team in anything I do. So, even in this story that I am blogging I have no intentions whatsoever to support anyone or attack and harm anyone. It is just my side of the story and I have a strong belief that not many people will read this particular story. I am just penning it down only for my sake and my memory because the famous so-called the rediscovery of Bhutan Swallowtail, Bhutanitis ludlowi (Gabriel, 1942) (Figure I) is so close to me and my service life. But before going for the story straight I would like the readers (if any) to know who I am and why I am so much interested in this subject.

  Figure 1: Bhutan Swallowtail, Bhutanitis ludlowi (morphed, original right wing was clipped)

As my blog has my true identity as an individual, I would like to talk about my service straight away. Bumdeling Wildlife Sanctuary (BWS) where the rediscovery happened was started in December 1998 and five months later I joined this Sanctuary and I am still a serving member on studies (that is going to finish soon). I feel proud that I have served to conserve the habitat of such a rare animal, though I did not have any idea about such butterflies before 2009. The story I write here will not be twisted because I know BWS (Figure II) better than anyone else and the people of the sanctuary know me better than anyone else too (this is my self-stand and I am not bragging to show myself off). In April 2000, I on the orders of my superiors established Bumdeling Park Range and served this area (a Gewog by name but almost half of Trashiyangtse Dzongkhag). This area was curved out of Trashigang Forest Division and all functions such as management, protection and conservation was taken over from Yangtse Range.

Figure II: Map of Bumdeling Wildlife Sanctuary with Bhutan Swallowtail location

Since then, I have scoured all corners of the Gewog from as far as the Sino-Bhutan border to Indo-Bhutan border which the Sanctuary has in the northeast and the north. I know lots of individual villagers by name since I have stayed in their villages by weeks to mark trees for their fuel and housing timbers. Further, shortage of staff gave me more time to be with the villagers than in the office because we were only three when we started our office in an abandoned, cracked and going to collapse anytime building in Bumdeling Dungzam.

But the most interesting thing to me was the laggard-ness in us, the then staff of Bumdeling Park Range who ate, slept, drank, defecated, played and night hunted girls with those butterflies, Bhutanitis ludlowi for such a long time (till its identity in 2009). I remember beautiful butterflies flying over me when I shitted below the footpath between Longkhar (Figure III) and Tobrang. I am sure some of them were Bhutanitis ludlowi but since other butterflies are also beautiful one cannot rule out the possibilities that Ludlow Swallowtail appeared only after 2009. Is it possible? This question will remain unanswered for such a long time in my brain. If seeing for the first time after 1933 goes to become a record, I would like to claim that me and my colleagues have seen the species in 2000 (Team Ludlow II). If it is considered as a claim that do not have any substance, I would like to blame the technology (because then we in BWS had no digital camera for the staff in the field as well as management headquarter) and let the rediscovery date be in 2009.

Photo III: Longkhar with Frank Ludlow (inset) who found the species in this village in 1933.

The recent popularity the rediscovery has gained is amazing. The species being very rare, very beautiful and being very important is worth praising. That the beautiful butterfly brought scores of Japanese entomologists and even helicopters (what a technology) is even more interesting. However, it is enigmatic that 2009 discovery did not bring any funds or people to BWS, although we reported the matter through Kuensel (I was the one to write the report that was sent to press through the department) while 2011 discovery made such headlines that it appeared several times in several media. We even had pictures of this species from the 2009 trip of our three foresters, viz. Karma Wangdi (Figure IV) , Tashi Phuntsho (Figure V) and Tsheten Wangchuk (Figure VI) and if anyone would have wanted it for publication we could have happily shared. These three foresters were sent for searching this particular species on the behest of the then Sanctuary Manager and I am proud to have been involved in sending them because I was the one to issue order for their travel. If these three foresters were first people to have photographed the butterfly I was the second person on the earth since 1933 to have seen the species in the photo as they brought their camera to my office to show their field progress with pride. Are there any connections to my pride and the rediscovery? Sorry readers (if any)! well it is for me and not for you all, do not be serious.

Figure IV: Karma Wangdi (we then call him Ap Kharee), then BWS staff at the habitat of the species in 2009. He was the head of the Team Ludlow III. 

Being their supervisor, I had the privilege of keeping their photographs in my computer and at one point published one of the pictures in an online website “India Nature Watch”. I did not know how important the picture was neither did my colleagues in India Nature Watch as there were no reactions whatsoever from them. Some of them commented “it’s beautiful” while some wrote "amazing' and that’s it. If it is such a rare species, why there wasn’t any response from people using online resources, is another question that runs through my veins. After few months on the web, a young officer, who was and is perhaps interested to pursue studies of this species called me up to say that posting such rare pictures is unethical. I was told that the matter could become sensitive if the picture is kept on the web. And on his suggestion, I deleted the picture from the web instantly. Laggardly is a bad thing.

  Figure V: Tashi Phuntsho (we then called him Tortola), then BWS staff who was part of team Ludlow III.

But interestingly, I saw televised interviews and newspaper making lots of hue and cries about the rediscovery in 2011. Where the media sleeping in 2009 is yet another question that is haunting? How come they are active only today? May be the answer is technology once more. What I intend to say through this piece of writing is that the species was indeed rediscovered (if it’s applicable, because I also read an article in Kuensel questioning the credibility of the word rediscovery) in 2009 by three foresters from BWS and that they were working for an entomology project funded by Bhutan Foundation and that the date of rediscovery should not be recorded as 2011. I don’t know if entomologists made the popularity difference otherwise we saw the species long ago (with eyes in 2000, that cannot be proven as reasoned above); and with eyes and specimens collection in 2009.

Figure VI: Tsheten Wangchuk (we then called him Udzorong) was also part of team Ludlow III.

Since I am not an entomologist, I do not know much about them but I write this in my blog to emphasize that the Ludlow’s Bhutan Swallowtail was discovered by the staff of Bumdeling Wildlife Sanctuary, their own owners and not somebody out of blue. No one should take the pride of being a re-discoverer other than the three foresters, the staff of BWS and the Royal Government of Bhutan. For further research, I do not want to care who does it as it involves money and knowledge, but for rediscovery, sorry others can’t take the credit. It should not be the case of “Khucha yak gi ba Ngo Bjob ki taen”.

I called the Team Ludlow III because they were the ones who could catch the species and photograph a number of individuals not forgetting the Team Ludlow II who did not have cameras to take photos including poor people like me.

 

Disclaimer

This is my personal thought and anything written here is not intended to harm or promote people or things mentioned here. No one is authorized to use the content of this blog for either personal or private purpose. People mentioned here in are fictitious characters and any resemblance to anyone with some characters or more are purely coincidence.