I don't worry to much about the predators of butterfly cats. Nature can take care of itself, its usually only when us humans meddle that things go awry. Now I'm not dissuading the practice of protecting butterfly caterpillars, I think its great and is fun, interesting and educational, but for those that don't: don't worry about it (unless its a really rare species, you're really probably not affecting the population as a whole). An adult butterfly can lay hundreds of eggs. Lepidoptera caterpillars (though moths are far more numerous than butterflies) are a huge part of the base of the food chain, its vital to the ecosystem that they are predated on. The best thing we can do for the butterfly population as a whole is plant more host plants and not use harmful things that would kill them (Bt, other pesticides especially systematic ones). To promote this in my area I took our planners recommended "planting list" (common native species in our region that the planners ask the developers to use when replanting near natural areas, no non-natives or rare species allowed next to natural areas) and cross referenced it with out local butterflies.
So heres my local list of butterflies and their host plants, and on the other tabs are locally common plant species and what butterflies they may host (Edit: they have launched our new webpage, butterfly host plant list now has its own page):
http://conservationhalton.ca/o...
