Admiral butterflies are found the world over, but the kahukura (red cloak) — commonly known as the New Zealand red admiral — is only found here, while the more common yellow variety is one we share with Australia.
Both are considered native as they were not introduced and predate European contact.
The reds were once more commonly seen throughout both islands and were part of our common experience. But that’s not the case today for many reasons. The most salient being the devastation caused by introduced wasps who love nothing better than gobbling up plump caterpillars.
The kahukura is now an uncommon sight in Auckland.
Jacqui Knight, the powerhouse behind a campaign to bring back the red admiral, also suspects aeriel spraying that took place in Auckland in the 1990s to battle the painted apple moth is partly to blame for making the reds all but disappear from the city.
Grow more nettles
Aside from the wasps, there’s another obvious culprit at play here because the favourite place for the butterflies to lay their eggs is a plant much hated by gardeners and councils alike: stinging nettles.
This means part of the campaign to make life better for admirals means encouraging people to grow more nettles.
I first learnt about admirals and nettles from Graeme Hill, a radio legend whose Weekend Variety Wireless show on the now-defunct Radio Live featured lively environmental reportage for more than a decade. Hill studied zoology at university and his love of native plants and creatures is infectious.
His backyard is a tui-filled masterclass in indigenous flora and fauna which he created when he was literally on "garden leave" after moving from Radio Sport to Radio Live in the early 2000’s.
“People hate nettles because they sting. But bees sting, are we clearing them?” Hill told me, standing next to a Nissan Micra-sized nettle bush he’s grown specially for the admirals.
He’s released more than 5000 of the yellow variety over the years but only a handful of reds. He’s also a fan of nettles and grows the European variety and the indigenous ongaonga or Urtica ferox, a scary, spikey-looking thing that he has tucked away next to a fence.
"It’s the favourite plant for the red's caterpillars and it’s in the Guinness Book Of Records as the world’s most dangerous plant," Hill says.
"It is recorded in modern times to have killed at least one person and it’s suspected as the cause of death for a hunter quite recently, but I think its dangerousness is overstated.
"I’ve been stung tons of times.”
Once Hill sees the tell-tale signs of an admiral caterpillar making its nest under a nettle leaf (they spin a web causing the leaf the curl) he carefully extracts, or as he says, “Dunkirk’s it” off to a cage or "caterpillar castle" where it will be left to grow unmolested through the chrysalis phase into a butterfly.
Without that intervention, wasps will most likely intervene.
You can find out more about the campaign at www.nzbutterflies.org.nz.
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