Castlemaine Copper Butterfly upends city rail plan

Posted on 1 July, 2021 by Ivan

Our beautiful Eltham Copper Butterfly (aka Castlemaine Copper Butterfly, as we do have the largest population in the world!) has been in the news again! The Endangered butterfly has been discovered next to a suburban railway near Eltham, VIC, and has triggered a change in the large railway infrastructure project, to ensure the population is not threatened. The Age newspaper featured a large writeup on the community discovery and subsequent revision of the railway project, due to the Endangered listing of the butterfly under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

The Eltham Copper Butterfly is a small and attractive butterfly with bright copper colouring on the tops of its wings visible during the summer flight season. Connecting Country has been a strong advocate for the further protection of the butterfly and has facilitated surveys in our region and hosted educational events to engage our community of the importance of our regions populations. For more information about the butterfly, and why we love this fascinating beauty, click here.

Some interesting butterfly facts:

This unusual species has a close symbiotic association with a group of ants from the genus Notoncus and the shrub Sweet Bursaria (Bursaria spinosa).
Adult butterflies lay their eggs on the roots and stems of Sweet Bursaria. Once the eggs hatch, the ants guard the caterpillars (providing protection from predators), ushering the larvae to and from the ant nest at the base of the shrub, to feed on the Sweet Bursaria leaves at night. In return the ants feed on the sugar secretions exuded from the body of the caterpillar.
The butterfly prefers open flight paths and receiving direct sunlight. It likes vegetation with an open middle and understorey.
Castlemaine region has the largest known population in the world, with suitable habitat and woodlands. Fire is the major threat to this species, as well as loss of habitat.

The Eltham Copper Butterfly is one of our regions threatened species (photo: Elaine Bayes)

The full article courtesy of The Age website is below, a good example of how community and citizen science can ensure better protection of remaining populations.

Butterfly flaps its wings in Montmorency – and upends $530m rail plan

Hundreds of metres of new railway tracks promised by the Andrews government in Melbourne’s north-east will no longer be built to save an endangered butterfly species.

The $530 million track duplication on the Hurstbridge line was promised before the 2018 state election. The upgrade would benefit commuters in two marginal, Labor-held seats of Eltham and Yan Yean.

The project involved duplicating about three kilometres of a single-track section between Greensborough and east of Montmorency station, and a separate 1.5 kilometre stretch between Diamond Creek and Wattle Glen.

Work started on the project late last year but was paused after a local spotted the endangered Eltham copper butterfly in remnant bushland near Montmorency station in January.

This prompted the Level Crossing Removal Authority to alert the federal Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment about the discovery.

The state government looked set to face a lengthy environmental approvals process to proceed with the works. Instead, the government ditched a section of its planned duplication that would have cut through the butterfly habitat.

Jane Oldfield and Damian Magner, who spotted the endangered butterfly in remnant bushland near Montmorency station in January (photo: The Age)

Under the revised plan, 950 metres of the rail line will no longer be duplicated east of Montmorency station on the Eltham side — where the butterfly habitat is located.

Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan said the government had to act quickly to ensure it was following federal environmental legislation.

“We’re already hard at work delivering the Hurstbridge line duplication through this growing part of Melbourne and very soon residents will benefit from more frequent and reliable services,” she said.

The Eltham copper butterfly, which is nationally listed as endangered, is found only at several sites around Eltham and in isolated spots in Castlemaine, Bendigo and Kiata, near Nhill. It was considered extinct from the 1950s, until it was rediscovered in Eltham in 1986.

Montmorency resident Damian Magner, who spotted the butterfly in February, said it was great news that it would be spared. But he said had the government carried out proper environmental assessments before starting the project, instead of relying on residents’ intervention, “they wouldn’t have ended up in this awful mess with egg all over their faces.

“It’s appalling that local residents have had to step in and protect this crucial butterfly habitat, when multiple Victorian state and federal government agencies should have been aware of it from the beginning. They never bothered to look.”

The government counters that it had carried out all necessary environmental assessments and there was no sign of the butterfly before they were sighted in early 2021.

The government says the revised design will not reduce the service frequency it originally promised: a train on average every seven minutes from Greensborough and every 10 minutes from Montmorency and Eltham. This is due to additional signalling and power works that will now be rolled out.

Any changes to the cost of the works being carried out by an alliance of Acciona, Coleman Rail, WSP and Metro Trains Melbourne will not be significant, the government says.

Major construction is to start early next year and will be finished in late 2022. The butterfly habitat will be fenced off while the works are under way.

Public Transport Users Association spokesman Daniel Bowen said the government had to ensure no services would be sacrificed. “It certainly does compromise the duplication and they do need to make sure the rest of the project is optimised to reduce train delays,” he said.

The federal Environment Department said substantial civil or criminal penalties would apply to any person who carried out work that posed significant impact to a nationally endangered species without the proper approvals in place.