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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Environment
Donna Lu

‘Every moth is precious’: why are there so many bogong moths, and how can you safely remove them from your home?

Bogong moth close up
Bogongs ‘are a boom and bust species … but climate change makes it worse,’ says citizen scientist Linnea Emneby. ‘I think people just quickly forget what’s normal and think of this as an extreme occurrence.’ Photograph: Ajay Narendra

Skies over parts of New South Wales have been aflutter in recent days as swarms of bogong moths begin their annual migration, travelling up to 1,000 km from their breeding grounds in different parts of the country to a small number of cool caves in the Australian Alps.

Sightings of the endangered moth have increased over the last two years, but reports to the citizen science program Moth Tracker this September alone have exceeded 2025’s total figures, according to Zoos Victoria, which runs the platform.

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