Fender’s blue butterfly may become only the second insect to have recovered in the history of the Endangered Species Act, and its recovery is tied to both a species of wildflower and ants. (via highcountrynews)
From the top of Pigeon Butte in western Oregon’s William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge, the full width of the Willamette Valley fits into a gaze. Slung between the Coast Range and the Cascades, the valley is checkered with farmland: grass-seed fields, hazelnut orchards, vineyards. In the foreground, however, grassy meadows scattered with wildflowers and occasional oaks trace the land’s contours.
I’d come to the Pigeon Butte prairie one May morning in search of Fender’s blue because I wanted to see firsthand the particular beauty of this rare butterfly. But also, at a time when an estimated half-million insect species worldwide face extinction and butterfly populations are shrinking at unprecedented rates, I wanted to witness the thing this creature represented — proof that amid such overwhelming loss, recovery, too, remains possible.
Schultz began by observing Fender’s blues to better understand their particular ecology: How far will a Fender’s travel? How much nectar is needed to support a population? How do fires and herbicides affect the species? Then, she and her colleagues used their findings to help develop the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Fender’s blue recovery plan. But science alone, Schultz told me, cannot enact conservation. “Recovery takes three things,” she said. “Science, time and partnerships.
On a June afternoon, Kaye and I stood amid rows of flowering plants at the organization’s seed production farm. The lupine was nearly ready to harvest, and Kaye lifted a pod and held it skyward. Sunlight flooded the husk to reveal the dark orbs of just two seeds cupped inside. Kincaid’s lupine, he said, produces scant seeds, especially in the wild, where predators such as weevils abound. That made it nearly impossible to collect enough for restoration.
The Fish and Wildlife Service began restoring Fender’s habitat at Baskett Slough in the mid-1990s. The agency removed encroaching weeds from the existing lupine patches on the butte, then controlled invasive species on the adjacent slopes and replanted them with native vegetation. As the populations of these plants grew, so did that of Fender’s blue.
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