20 boxes of butterflies picked up at collectors home.

According to police, two Danish collectors have broken conservation rules by catching endangered butterflies in Norway. WWF suspects an international network.

At August 2, two experienced Danish butterfly collectors in Aalborg and Randers had to witness the police leave with up to 20 moving boxes from their homes. At the same time, they risk a fine for breaking international nature conventions.

In the boxes were thousands collected for decades all over Europe and neatly put on needles in boxes. The North Jutland Police searched the two addresses at the request of the police in Norway, where the two men were arrested when they caught rare and protected butterflies at Gjendebu in Jotunheimen in the southern Norway.

The men were arrested with 35-40 of the extremely rare Apollo butterfly, according to operations manager Marianne Brun from Norwegian police to the NTB news agency.

- The police take fauna crime very seriously. There is a reason these species are protected. There is a reason these species are protected, she says.

The Apollo butterfly is protected in most European countries. It is on the Red List of Endangered Species and thus protected by the 1975 Cites Convention - also called the Washington Convention that regulates endangered species trade.

The many thousands of seized butterflies is now to be reviewed by experts at the Danish Nature Agency.

This is stated by Acting Police Commissioner Henrik Taagaard, head of the Animal Welfare Section of the North Jutland Police.

- When we have an overview of how many of the butterflies are endangered species and how many are not, then we assess whether to bring charges, Henrik Taagaard says.

Initially, the two men, who are in their 40s and 60s, are charged with violating the Washington Convention. Both have been collecting butterflies all over Europe for many years.

Ritzau has tracked down one of the two charges men in Aalborg. He, on the one hand, denies having hunted protected butterflies in Norway - but on the other hand admits that the police have seized his collection.

- The case is severely oversized by the police. After all, it's all my life's work and 38 years of work that they have included, he says to Ritzau.

According to his website, the person is a magazine editor and participates in several scientific associations on butterflies. He has even published articles on finds of new butterfly species in the Balkans.

- I'm an ordinary person who collects butterflies and has been doing so since childhood.

- I send samples for DNA analysis at universities, and then I just have a scientific reference collection that a lot of other Danes and foreigners have, he says. The man admits that in some countries he has caught butterflies protected by Cites.

- Of course, it is not unknown to me that some butterflies are threatened, and it is wrong and stupid of me to catch them.

- But going out and catching a few pieces doesn't matter. Destruction of their habitats, nitrogen emissions from agriculture and road construction is a far greater threat, including climate change, the accused says.

Thor Hjarsen, senior biologist at the WWF World Nature Fund, finds the case shocking. It confirms to him rumors that have been pervading for years about an international network of butterfly enthusiasts suffering from collection mania.

- It's absurd that we use tax dollars to protect habitats, and people plant and sow butterfly-friendly plants in the gardens - and then we see this, he says. Thor Hjarsen calls on Environment Minister Lea Wermelin (S) to put a stop in the collection of rare butterflies and to tighten up on conservation and punishment.

- Maybe all collections of red-listed and protected butterfly species should be recorded, and perhaps they should be banned from expanding. Like it did after the many bird egg collections revealed 20 years ago, the WWF biologist says.

This Danish article translated into English