Watch butterflies in Bom Jesus

The Confraria do Bom Jesus do Monte, the University of Minho / IBS / CBMA and the Bracara Augusta Foundation have an ongoing project that aims to “study, characterize and survey the fauna and flora present throughout the Sanctuary area” , was announced today.

It is a “project to enhance the entire environmental heritage of this classified area, which is decisive for its classification, and which, in addition to the study, is essential to promote and publicize”.

Varico Pereira, manager of the Sanctuary for UNESCO, said in a statement that “this observation session is part of the inventory and monitoring actions of natural heritage, necessary to respond to UNESCO recommendations, in this field of nature”.

“On the other hand, this project by Fauna and Flora of Bom Jesus reinforces the ties of collaboration between institutions and the local community, making it possible to discover a more unknown dimension of this resort, the life of animals and nocturnal plants, of the Bom Jesus forest. Jesus”, he says.

In this sense, coordinated by professor Pedro Gomes, professor at the Department of Biology at the University of Minho and researcher at CBMA, a team of final-year students from the Applied Biology course is currently carrying out the study and suggesting intervention measures that aim to safeguard, value and enhance all this heritage, environmental and landscape value.

For Fátima Pereira, executive director of the Bracara Augusta Foundation, “this is a project that mobilizes the Bracara Augusta Foundation to recognize the importance of environmental heritage, fauna and flora, which must be identified and protected, and which opens up a new approach and a whole range of new educational content”.

“This is an important contribution to heritage and environmental education and to the promotion of an asset of enormous value for Braga”, considering that “the investment in heritage education is crucial, even a condition, for the preservation of the Sanctuary. This is an asset that has to count on the mobilization of the entire community and this is the only way to achieve it”, continues the statement.

In this context, a night initiative open to the public took place on April 23rd at the Bom Jesus do Monte Sanctuary, in which around three dozen people participated, including children, young UM students and adults, of different age groups, who he traveled through the forest area looking for and identifying animal species. A light trap was also set up to attract nocturnal butterflies for subsequent identification. This type of non-lethal traps is being used in a national citizen science project (Network of Night Butterfly Stations – https://www.reborboletasn.org), which is monitoring populations of these butterflies at a national level. known in Portugal.

The work carried out by students involves direct observations (birds, insects, mammals…), use of sampling equipment (nets, traps and automatic cameras) as well as photographic recording of everything that appears over the seasons. The aim is to ultimately obtain a portrait of the biological community supported by the Bom Jesus forest as well as identify areas where management measures can be promoted that lead to the support of greater biological diversity. The work carried out so far has already made it possible to detect some curiosities, such as the presence of carnivores such as foxes and genets, as well as the location of preferential areas for observing certain types of forest birds (blue creepers, woodpeckers, tits …).

“Being not yet the season with the greatest diversity, the frogs (Bufo spinosus), the opilions (long-legged arachnid with a very characteristic cephalothorax) and the grasshoppers were the stars of the night, where the enthusiasm of everyone who participated was visible. In the short time that the light trap was active, it was possible to identify two species of nocturnal butterflies that were quite interesting given their unusual coloring for this group of insects: Hecatera dysodea and Orthosia cerasi”, concludes the statement.