Beetles Away!

Summer time and the field season are in full swing and things have been busy on the rivers!  We've talked a lot about our Galerucella beetle rearing project on the blog, and we are both happy and sad to say that this season's beetle rearing has come to an end.

On June 28th and 29th we gave away many of our beetle-laden plants to some great partners within the SUASCO CISMA: the Sudbury Valley Trustees, the town of Marlborough Conservation Department, Concord Land Conservation Trust, and Lincoln Land Conservation Trust. We released the remainder of our plants at the Concord Impoundments (part of Great Meadows NWR) with the help of two US Fish and Wildlife interns, Dani and Matt, and the Student Conservation Association / National Park Service Fellow, Katrina.

We are thrilled to say that the project was a huge success! It's nearly impossible to get an accurate count of how many new beetles we raised because there are so many, they're small, and many are still pupae hiding in the soil. We started out with 37 pots of purple loosestrife, a few of out pots didn't appear to turn out to be very successful, but our conservative estimate is that we raised between 17,000 and 33,000 beetles.  That's a huge number of beetles (we started out with 400-450)! The range is so big because we are estimating that each plant, seeded with 10-15 beetles, can produce between 500 and 1,000 new adults.

We'll also soon be polishing up a very detailed how-to guide, chock full of our notes, suggestions, and lessons learned. If you (or someone you know, your school, your environmental club, or conservation-related organization) are interested in rearing beetles yourself,  let us know!  It's actually relatively easy and is a great way to engage and involve people of all ages! We will be happy to share our experiences and the protocol with you, and there are tons of other beetle rearing stories out there to get you started. The Neponset Watershed Association (in Canton, MA) has been raising beetles for the past couple of years with the help of their army of volunteers. Their opperation is probably on a much larger scale than what you might be interested in, but check out their Flickr photos for some great inspiration!