Twelve butterfly enthusiasts, all of them women, go live on Instagram on May 9. Pratiksha Patel, a scientist from Gujarat is one of them. She has documented butterfly species across the country. She will share her journey and her over 10 plus years of experience in the field. Narmadha Dangampola from Sri Lanka, who is the president of Butterfly Conservation Society of Sri Lanka will talk about conservation. Geeta Yadav from Delhi who is actively involved in butterfly conservation at Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary and Priyanka Kumari from Mumbai who has reared butterflies and plans to set up a butterfly garden at her home, and several other enthusiasts will talk about their work.
Common hedge blue
Poster of the event
The session is hosted by Sharan Venkatesh, a butterfly enthusiast himself. He says, “I selected 12 members from 12 states, a mix of experts and amateurs, will share their inspiring stories and why they chose to research on butterflies. The objective is to motivate more women to enter this field.”
Sharan Venkatesh
Sharan, who works as senior quality engineer in Chennai, is the founder of Rhopalocera and Odonata Association of Rajapalayam (ROAR), an informal group in his home town located in the foothills of the Western Ghats. The five-year-old ROAR has so far recorded 235 species of butterflies at Grizzled Squirrel Wildlife Sanctuary in Rajapalayam alone (there are 340 plus species in the Western Ghats).
It was a congratulatory text message from Isaac Khemkar, the butterfly man of India, that got Shran interested in the ‘winged jewels’. “I spotted a rare butterfly, the Evershed Sage, during my first ever butterfly outing in Rajapalayam. Isaac Khemkar texted me asking if I could share the photograph for use in his book. That was the starting point.” He visits schools and initiates students into the world of butterflies, dragonflies and damselflies. The ROAR team also helps students identify butterflies on their campus. To build interest, they have a whatsapp group where children regularly post images of butterfly species they have spotted.
Webinar poster
On May 10, Sharan holds an online webinar session on know your neighbouring country butterflies ( part II) with experts like Akram Awan, the butterfly man of Pakistan; Steve Woodhall, author of Field Guide to the Butterflies of South Africa ; Amit Kumar Neogi, admin of Butterfly Bangladesh group and Sanje Prasad Suwal admin of Butterfly Watchers, Nepal. “ In part I of my webinar session, butterfly experts from Sri Lanka and Singapore discussed the endemic butterflies there and also highlighted conservation work.”
Last weekend, his Instagram live with 12 stalwarts in butterfly field from India, including Isaac Khemkar, received good response. “It is the feedback that inspired me to make these instalive and webinar sessions a regular feature on the weekends. It’s the best way to make the COVID 19 Lockdown a productive one.”
For infobox
Sharan’s Instagram handle w ww.instagram.com/roarrajapalayam will hold the live session on May 9 from 9.30 am to 6.30 pm
To participate in the webinar, you can whatsapp Sharan at 94432-67670 or connect with him on Facebook
