CATERPILLARS DIE
Ragwort Still Flourishing (Special Crspdt. N.Z.P.A.) LONDON, June 11. Not one survivor, out of 15,000: that’s the sad story told at the week-end by a naturalist, Dr. Roger Clarke. Last summer Dr. Clarke turned 15,000 cinnebar caterpillars loose in the 1000-year-old Port Meadow, Oxford, to rid it of poisonous ragwort. The ragwort, said all the best authorities, was the favourite food of this caterpillar. However on recent examination of the meadow by Dr. Clarke and his colleagues the discovery was that “we could not find a single caterpillar.” He thinks that the wet winter may have killed them, or perhaps some mystery ingredient in the ancient meadow did not agree with them. But he doesn’t know, he’s only guessing. Now he has offered to raise an army of volunteers to pull up the ragwort by hand.
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Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31111, 14 July 1966, Page 20
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138CATERPILLARS DIE Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31111, 14 July 1966, Page 20
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