The reintroduction of the Large Blue butterfly was the subject of the very first article published in British Wildlife, in October 1989. Three decades on, we are delighted to receive an update from Jeremy Thomas, the author of the original piece, along with David Simcox and Sarah Meredith, who explain how this beautiful insect has fared during the intervening years.
In two early articles in British Wildlife, we described our tentative first steps towards re-establishing the Large Blue Maculinea arion in Britain following its national extinction in 1979, and some encouraging progress made over the next decade (Thomas 1989, 1999). Success, in those days, was tenuous and far from ensured; not that we expected an easy ride.