Back from the edge: Checkerspot butterflies thrive in new prairie home

State Fish and Wildlife biologist Mike Walker carefully steps around prairie vegetation while looking for specimans during a Monday release of adult Taylor’s checkerspot butterflies.
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Monday was a reluctant moving day for a batch of brightly colored Taylor’s checkerspot butterflies that began life at the Oregon Zoo in Portland and will end it soon on a South Sound prairie preserve near Littlerock.

The release of 60 adult butterflies was the latest chapter in a five-year project to bring the black, reddish-orange and cream-colored insect back from the verge of extinction. Once found at more than 70 sites from Vancouver Island to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, the only self-supported population is limited to, of all places, the artillery impact zone at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

The decline, which makes them a candidate for listing under the federal Endangered Species Act, is traced to fragmented and degraded prairie habitat, development and maybe even climate change, according to Hannah Anderson, a rare species program manager for The Nature Conservancy.

But there’s growing evidence that efforts to establish a population at the prairie site near Littlerock is paying dividends, said state Fish and Wildlife biologist Mary Linders.

“Hundreds if not thousands of these butterflies flew here this spring,” Linders said just prior to the latest release. “It’s very exciting.” It’s highly likely that the animals flying to the restoration site this spring grew from wild-laid eggs of captive-reared adults, Anderson said.

More: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/05/25/1199835/just-a-bug-but-a-very-beautiful.html

Thanks.

Mostly, the efforts don't get a lot of press- though my bet would be that's about to change.

In addition, as we can read right here on DU- there are tons of unsung heroes doing little things- often in their own backyards to help everything from migratory birds, to native pollen bees to bats. Lil' things everywhere collectively make big differences.