The peacock butterfly is butterfly of the year 2024: Austria has voted

2,555 people took part in the butterfly voting and chose their favourite from 125,000 butterflies from the Citizen Science project „Schmetterlinge Österreichs“.

"The peacock butterfly is a truly worthy butterfly of the year 2024, not only stunningly beautiful, but fortunately also a less endangered species. This means that it really can still be admired and encouraged by all butterfly fans. With nettles in the garden as a food plant for the caterpillar, with a bit of luck the butterfly may soon become a co-inhabitant," explains Peter Huemer, Director of Blühendes Österreich and curator of the natural history collection at the Tyrolean State Museums.

With more than 30,000 records on "Butterflies of Austria", the peacock butterfly is the second most common species in Austria. In second place in the voting is the sail swallowtail and in third place the no less beautiful orange tip.

"The aim of the 'Butterfly of the Year' campaign was, together with Blühendes Österreich, to once again draw attention to the importance of butterflies and their significant contribution to our ecosystem and to emphasise the value of native butterflies, which are not only beautiful to look at, but also play a very important role in preserving biodiversity. The 2,555th participant in the butterfly voting - just like the butterfly app - is a great success and shows that people are paying attention to nature," says "Natur im Garten" Managing Director Christa Lackner.

The research, documentation and digitalisation of local butterflies by means of the successful citizen science project "Butterflies of Austria" through active citizen participation and with scientific support is a European showcase project. The photographer of the winning photo and avid user of the app, Erika Kühnelt, emphasises: "As an enthusiastic observer of nature, I have always been particularly fascinated by butterflies. The butterfly app then triggered a real 'butterfly fever' in me - I am constantly amazed at how many different species of these wonderful beauties there are and will hopefully continue to be for some time to come."

Competition

Numerous great prizes were raffled off among all participants. The winners can look forward to specialist gardening books and surprise packages from "Natur im Garten" as well as REWE vouchers.

Strong together for biodiversity

With their cooperation, Blühendes Österreich and "Natur im Garten" are creating a Europe-wide nature conservation and scientific lighthouse collaboration between a public and a private sector institution. Both organisations have a clear focus on nature and environmental education with the vision of making Austria more species-rich, colourful and diverse and getting Austrians excited about and involved in the topics of biodiversity and nature conservation.

Butterflies of Austria

The free Schmetterlingsapp.at and its desktop version are used for the scientific recording of Austrian butterflies. In Europe, butterfly populations have roughly halved since 1990, and over 50 per cent of Austria's butterflies are endangered or critically endangered according to the Red List. The habitats of butterflies have been massively restricted, not least due to agricultural intensification, increasing urban sprawl and the drastic loss of species-rich flower meadows in general, and experts describe their disappearance, which has so far received little public attention, as a clear indication that the entire ecosystem is out of balance.

Whether garden owner or park visitor, farmer or farmer's wife, mountain lover or hiker or simply nature lover and butterfly fan - every Austrian can make a contribution as a citizen scientist to recording the population of Austrian butterflies: The app contains around 160 identifiable butterfly species and 32 moths and makes it possible to report butterfly observations with just a few clicks and without complicated technical applications.

Using an integrated photo function, photos are uploaded to a gallery within seconds and made available to the community and researchers.Together with their sightings and photos, users contribute to the creation of Austria's largest butterfly gallery.In less than a second after creating a photo and a sighting report, the data is put online in a gallery and can be shared and discussed with the butterfly community. The gallery is visible in a desktop version as well as on a smartphone. The passion, performance and commitment of each user is made visible and their reports are scientifically analysed. Making the work of users visible is a major concern for Blühendes Österreich and "Natur im Garten".

About Blühendes Österreich - BILLA non-profit private foundation

The BILLA Foundation Blühendes Österreich is committed to nature conservation and biodiversity in Austria. The foundation is a non-profit organisation that is on the list of charitable organisations. The bird conservation organisation BirdLife Austria is a partner and co-founder of Blühendes Österreich. Since 2015, Blühendes Österreich has been supporting around 300 farmers, nature conservation organisations, municipalities, NGOs and civil society initiatives that protect our habitats, animals and plants through responsible agriculture and valuable nature conservation projects. To date, 1,100 hectares of valuable biotopes have already been protected. The website bluehendesoesterreich.at is the strongest digital platform for nature tourism and nature content. In the nature experience portal, Blühendes Österreich brings together around 100 organisations with thousands of nature events per year. The citizen science app "Schmetterlinge Österreichs" is one of the largest nature observation apps in the German-speaking world with over 50,000 downloads and the corresponding desktop version. www.bluehendesoesterreich.at/

About " Natur im Garten"

The Lower Austrian environmental movement "Natur im Garten" has been dedicated to the ecologisation of gardens and green spaces in Lower Austria since 1999. Avoiding the use of synthetic chemical pesticides and fertilisers as well as peat are the three core criteria as a sustainable contribution to climate, environmental and species protection right on our own doorstep. " Natur im Garten" is present among hobby gardeners, in communities and schools with a wide range of information and educational programmes, in the economy with 170 "Natur im Garten" partner businesses, in tourism with 97 "Natur im Garten" show gardens and in the university sector through a cooperation with the Danube University Krems. Over 20,000 " Natur im Garten" badges hang on Lower Austria's garden fences, 489 "Natur im Garten" communities can be listed in Lower Austria. www.naturimgarten.at

Enquiries & contact: Dr Judith Terlizzi, Head of Communications Blühendes Österreich

Tel. +43 676 711 74 50, j.terlizzi@bluehendesoesterreich.at; Carina Pürer, M.A., Press Officer „Natur im Garten“, Tel. +43 676 848 790 737, carina.puerer@naturimgarten.at