Pearl-bordered Fritillary Seminar 2026

Introduction to the Pearl-bordered Fritillary butterfly day seminar held by Montgomeryshire Wildlife Trust on 14th September 2026

What does it take to conserve Pearl-bordered Fritillaries in Montgomeryshire? MWT's Tammy Stretton and Tim Ward explore 25 years of habitat management and monitoring, highlighting the challenges of maintaining connected violet-rich habitat and the lessons learned from Wales’s last remaining strongholds for this threatened butterfly.

How does England's largest population of Pearl-bordered Fritillaries survive in the Wyre Forest? Dr Jenny Joy explores two decades of monitoring and habitat management, revealing how connected woodland habitats, adaptive conservation and volunteer-led action are helping this threatened butterfly thrive.

Dr Simon Spencer explores the opportunities and challenges of habitat restoration through England's Countryside Stewardship scheme, using lessons from Nantmawr to show why long-term landowner engagement, grazing and landscape-scale habitat connectivity are vital for this threatened butterfly.

What is driving the decline of Dartmoor’s fritillaries? Jenny Plackett explores the management of Pearl-bordered and High Brown Fritillaries on Dartmoor, highlighting innovative habitat restoration trials, emerging threats and new research aimed at reversing long-term population declines.

How can practical habitat management sustain fritillary populations for decades? Paul Dunn shares lessons from over 30 years of conservation in the Alun Valley, showing how targeted woodland management, grazing and careful monitoring are helping maintain vital breeding habitat for the High Brown Fritillary.

Dr Simon Spencer uses Llanymynech Hill as a case study to demonstrate how successful habitat restoration depends not only on grazing livestock, but on sustaining the skilled graziers, infrastructure and long-term commitment needed to make conservation grazing work.

Dr Zoe Randle explores the hidden relationships between violets, ants and butterflies on Dartmoor, revealing how microclimate, seed dispersal and species interactions shape habitat suitability in a changing climate.

Anthony McCluskey explores the species’ encouraging status in Scotland, highlighting the habitats, landscape features and conservation successes that are helping populations persist, expand and even establish new colonies in a changing climate.

Dr Simon Spencer reflects on the big picture for Pearl-bordered Fritillary butterflies in Wales, exploring four decades of successes, setbacks and lessons learned in the effort to restore and reconnect populations of this threatened butterfly.

The open discussion largely centred round the different techniques which have been or could be used to create and manage habitat, with and without grazing animals.